Tales From Pete's World 5 - Love's Labour's Temporarily Mislaid
by SciFiFanForever
Summary: An international tale of jewel thieves, pyramids, altered realities, loves lost and loves found. It's a sort of Doctor and Rose meet Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. I couldn't think of a title, so borrowed one from Mr. Shakespeare (apologies)
1. Chapter 1

Notes: In this story, the Metacrisis Doctor and Rose continue to do domestic, work for Torchwood and travel in the TARDIS. It's a sort of Doctor and Rose meet Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Please let me know if you enjoy it. 

**Chapter 1**

**New York, January 2016 (Pete's World Calendar).**

A black, shadowy figure descended head first from the ceiling like a spider on a line of web silk. Halfway to the floor, the figure stopped and reached into a pouch on their utility belt.

A small aerosol sprayed a fine mist downwards which caused the previously invisible laser beams to scintillate in the darkened hall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

The lasers criss-crossed above and around the display case that housed the Teotihuacan Sapphire, a Mesoamerican pyramidal gemstone of exceptional quality. It was four inches across on each side with a one inch bevelled recess around the base.

The suspended figure lowered a metre tall pole through the beams until it stood on its round base on the floor. A number of jointed, spider like arms carefully unfolded and started to place prisms in the path of the beams until an area above the glass case was cleared.

The human spider continued its descent until it was hovering above its prize. Even in the dim light of midnight, the iridescent blue sapphire seemed to glow with an internal light all of its own.

A circular suction cup was placed on top of the case and a diamond cutting tool ran around the edge of the cup until there was a faint 'click' as a hole was cut in the top of the case.

This was put to one side and a black box with four legs was attached to the edge of the hole with a clamp. The four legs had elongated feet that made it look like a miniature fork lift truck.

The two outer legs went either side of the sapphire, while the inner two eased themselves underneath it. The pressure sensitive alarm pad that the gem sat on was depressed gently by the outer forks as the inner forks lifted. Sensitive pressure gauges in the black box compensated for the weight of the sapphire and the downward pressure of the outer forks.

The Teotihuacan Sapphire was slowly raised to the opening in the showcase and gloved hands gently took the gemstone and placed it in a black cloth bag which was then attached to the utility belt.

The black, shadowy figure ascended back to ceiling and into the arms of the welcoming darkness.

* * *

**Paris, February 2016 (Pete's World Calendar).**

In the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, on Rue Cuvier, a replay of events that occurred in New York a month earlier were underway. A black, shadowy figure once again descended from the ceiling, deployed prisms, used a suction cutting tool and a small fork lift device to remove the Cheops Ruby from the safety of its display case.

The ruby was a magnificent blood red gemstone cut to the same design as the Teotihuacan Sapphire. In fact it had long been speculated by archeologists and jewellers alike that they may have been cut by the same ancient craftsman.

Modern examination of the gemstones had found that they were 99.9% exact in every dimension. Add to that the fact that they were the largest and least flawed examples of their kind, it was hardly surprising that all sorts of myths and alien conspiracies had grown around them.

These conspiracies were further fuelled by the fact that in 2001, The Prang Emerald was auctioned off at Christie's of London for £1.7 million to an anonymous Far East buyer.

This emerald was also the largest and least flawed of its kind, and yes, you've guessed it, it was the same size and shape as the other two gems. Although this couldn't be absolutely confirmed, as it had not undergone any scientific scrutiny before it was sold.

* * *

**A tropical island, 196 light years from Earth, April 2016 (Pete's World Calendar).**

Rose lay face down on the sun lounger, sunning her naked back under the large orange sun. They were on annual leave from Torchwood, and were spending it on the deserted second planet of Beta Pegasi, which they had decided to call Paradise.

The TARDIS had sprayed them all with a factor 30 sun block that would be effective for the duration of their stay. Her husband had donned a loincloth and the papoose, taking their son off to explore the jungle that adjoined the white sands of the beach. She sighed contentedly as she listened to the waves lapping gently on the shore.

'This IS paradise', she thought to herself as she felt the lightest of warm breezes caress her skin. The three of them were the only sentient life forms on the planet, and this island had no dangerous predators.

In his exploring, John had found that the top predator was something that looked like a tabby cat with a monkeys arms, legs and tail. They were inquisitive and friendly, but weren't brave enough to venture into the tree house.

The planet and the luxury tree house had been a birthday surprise for her, as John had shipped in timber, decking and materials from a DIY store on Earth and spent a week building it. When the TARDIS took him home, he had only been gone for an hour.

This was their secret hideaway where they could relax and get away from it all. They had hardly worn any clothes since they had arrived, except for a leather belt that Rose wore to clip her smartphone on to for emergencies.

If they were exploring, they would wear animal skin loincloths to protect sensitive bits of their anatomy. The trouble with that was, that they both thought they looked so damn sexy that they couldn't wait for EJ to take a nap so that they could tear them off of each other.

Rose reached out with her mind to see what John and EJ were doing. She could hear her son's internal babble as he sat in the papoose on John's back. He couldn't talk yet and his thoughts were more impressions and images rather than speech.

["Cat monkeys funny."] That was his name for the apex predators on the island. ["Daddy laughing…. Need to pee…. That's better…. Hee hee, Daddy said a naughty word."] Rose was giggling at his innocent thoughts.

["Sounds like someone needs a shower,"] Rose thought to John with a smile.

["Oh, hi sweetheart. Felt that did you?"] John had a trickle of pee running down his spine. ["He nearly got my hair with that one,"] he laughed. ["I'm nearly at the pool now."]

["I'll meet you there, I need to wash my hair before we leave."] Rose climbed off the lounger and grabbed her belt. She fastened it loosely around her waist so that it hung on her hips, before heading along the grassy path through the trees.

She came upon the clearing where a rocky pool was surrounded by jungle, and a small waterfall gently poured a sheet of water off a ledge into the crystal clear water. She saw John in the pool holding EJ, who was splashing the water with his hands. John had his back to her which gave her an idea.

She took off her belt and hung it on the branch of a tree and quietly slipped into the water, it was deliciously cold. Her skin puckered slightly with goose bumps and her nipples did a pretty good impression of pink sewing thimbles.

She closed her mind with a grin, took a deep breath and disappeared below the surface. She pulled herself down with a single breast stroke and then gracefully waggled her body like a dolphin, hugging the bottom of the pool.

She could see John ahead of her, standing on the smooth boulders of the pool bottom. He had taken off his loincloth and papoose and left them at the poolside. She rolled onto her back and eased forward until her head was between his ankles.

Being careful not to make contact, she blew some air out of her mouth and watched the bubbles race for the surface and tickle his 'undercarriage'. She opened her mind and saw him look down. Even through the water and the bubbles, she could see the enormous grin on his face.

She eased herself between his ankles and slid up his body, kissing bits of his anatomy as she ascended to the surface. She broke the surface with a gasping laugh and met his waiting lips with hers. EJ squealed with delight at seeing his mother suddenly appeared from the water.

"You Tarzan, me Jane," she said with a laugh as they finished the kiss.

"You, little minx," he laughed. "Here, have Boy and turn around, I'll wash your hair." He had collected a couple of broad, round leaves on his way to the pool and left them floating nearby.

He grabbed one of the leaves and squeezed the sap out of the thick stem into his hand. When he rubbed his hands together, it formed a scented lather that he rubbed into her scalp and hair.

"Mmmm, that feels SO good," she said. The apple-cinnamon-mint scent filled her nostrils, and would always remind her of this pool and this intimate moment. When John had finished she turned to face him and handed him EJ.

"Here, now it's my turn." John held his son and Rose swam around him, grabbing the other floating leaf. John was taller than Rose, and she couldn't stand on the bottom of the pool and wash his hair. She wrapped her legs around his waist to stay above the water.

She lathered the sap and rubbed it into his sticky up hair, making him groan with pleasure. EJ continued to chuckle and splash the water. Rose reached around John and rubbed the sap into her son's sticky up hair as well.

"Time to rinse," she said, and John waded over to the waterfall, carrying EJ in his arms and Rose riding piggyback.

"EJ," Rose sang. "Water on your head." She sent him the mental image of water pouring over his head, and laughed as he screwed his face up in anticipation.

The cool water gently drummed down on them as John walked through the cascade and into the small cave behind. Dappled sunlight danced over the wet stone walls, giving it the feel of a fairy grotto.

"Oh I love it here John. Thank you for finding our special hideaway." She kissed his neck.

"I love it here too, and you are very welcome." He turned around and walked back through the curtain of water into the sunshine. He continued to wade to the shallows and Rose climbed off him to stand on the bottom.

Stepping out of the water, John put his loincloth in the papoose and slung it over one shoulder while carrying EJ in his other arm. Rose grabbed her belt and slung that over her shoulder. Hand in hand they strolled back to the tree house.

They had a barbecued lunch on the beach before packing up and getting dressed. John took the cases and carried them down the steps to put in the TARDIS that was parked underneath the house. Rose sat on the balcony with EJ, taking in the view before they had to leave and returned to 'real life'.

Back on her old Earth, she thought it was a bit flash that people like Richard Branson had their own tropical islands, but John had given her not just an island, but a whole planet. He had registered his wish to be custodian of the planet with the Shadow Proclamation, and they had granted him permission.

This meant that although they didn't own the planet, they were the caretakers and had the responsibility for overseeing the natural evolution of life here. They could visit as often as they liked and indeed would be expected to visit at least once every year.

That would not be a problem.

* * *

**London, July 2016 (Pete's World Calendar).**

"... Happy birthday dear Eye-ulf…. Happy birthday to you." It was Friday 15th July, and young EJ smiled and chuckled as he tried to clap with the assembled family and friends, as they cheered and applauded.

Rose crouched down by the side of him and blew out the single candle on his 'spaceship' cake, which was on the table of his high chair.

"Cake everyone?" she said as she took the cake through to the kitchen to cut it and put the slices onto plates.

"Can I have the rocket engine?" Tony asked. "John says that a moon rocket can generate nearly 600,000 foot pounds per second of thrust," the five year old told them.

"Did he now?" Jackie said with raised eyebrows.

"Yes. It's so it can reach it's escape velocity," he said proudly.

"Which is?" John asked with a grin.

"11.2 kilometres a second. That's 25,000 miles an hour Daddy."

Pete had a proud smile on his face. 'That's my boy', he thought to himself.

"Ooh, he's bright," Melissa, their next door neighbour said. Anthony and Melissa had a two year old daughter called Abby, who had been invited to EJ's first birthday.

Jackie smiled and ruffled Tony's hair. "He's really sharp this one."

Rose came through to the sitting room with the cake and everyone sat down to eat. Rose used a plastic baby spoon to feed the cake to her son, who was determined to take the spoon and feed himself, making as much mess as possible.

Everyone was laughing at the birthday boy's antics and chatting amicably, when the muted TV showed a report of a volcano blowing its top.

"That's another one this year," Pete said.

"Where was it this time?" 'Uncle' Jack asked.

"Mount Galunggung in West Java, Indonesia," Donna-the-house informed them.

"Is this anything to be worried about John?" Rose asked her husband.

John smiled at her. "Volcano clusters are a statistical probability now and again. Once they've all released their pressure, it'll quiet down again for a few hundred years."

"Oi you Torchwood lot," Jackie chided. "Don't you ever stop lookin' for trouble? This is a birthday party. Donna, have you got any 'Space Patrol' for the young'ns?"

Tony and Abby cheered as a 3D animated children's space adventure appeared on the TV and Donna turned the volume up. EJ smiled and clapped his hands when he saw it. He knew these characters, as Tony had played with his action figures with him.

"Oh brilliant," John said. "I love this show."

Melissa leaned towards Rose. "Is he serious?" she asked quietly.

Rose rolled her eyes and laughed. "Unfortunately, he is."

Rose took EJ out of his high chair and put him on his play mat with his new activity toys. She smiled as he started picking them up and tasting them, just like his father would.

Something else that reminded her of John, was the way he would examine the toy as if trying to work out how he could open it and find out how it worked.

"I swear that if we'd have got him a sonic screwdriver as a present, he'd have had this lot in pieces by now," she laughed.

Melissa laughed politely with everyone else. She hadn't got a clue what a sonic screwdriver was, but felt sure it was something that Rose's scientist husband would use.

John went into the kitchen to get the drinks, bringing back a bottle of wine, cans of beer, some glasses, a bottle of Vitex for Tony and Abby, and a baby bottle of juice for EJ.

"So Melissa, how long have ya lived next door then," Jackie asked.

"Just three years now."

"And what do you and your husband do then?" Jack asked her.

"I'm an interior designer and Ant's a loss adjuster for an insurance company," she told them, and the conversation continued as they drank and ate nibbles.

John was on the floor, playing with EJ and all his new toys, along with Tony and Abby, while Jack regaled everyone with tales of his adventures (which usually ended up with him being naked). Melissa had never met anyone like Jack before and wasn't sure if he was being serious or not.

Eventually it got to the time when all small children should be in bed, and the guests said their thanks and goodbyes. Rose changed EJ's nappy and put him into a baby grow. She kissed him goodnight and John took him up to the nursery to put him down for the night.

When he came back down, they cuddled up on the sofa for the rest of the evening, finishing the wine and the beer before heading up to bed. Tomorrow they would be going away for the weekend, to Paradise.


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: Some recreational maths by Gwen (Numbers) O'Toole leads to an unexpected discovery.

**Chapter 2**

Rose was in the kitchenette of the Standby Room of the Special Operations Unit, making a pot of tea. John was putting a packet of chocolate digestives into the biscuit tin.

It had been a quiet morning so far, with only Jack and Gwen responding to a UFO sighting in the New Forest at the start of the shift. Rose had been helping her father with office work, responding to emails and answering enquiries. John had been in his lab, continuing the tidy up after he had used it to isolate himself from the time line, while he grew their new TARDIS.

The rest of the Watch were watching news feeds, or keeping up with the Torchwood status board. John thought Rose a message that he was ready for a brew, and they met in the Standby Room.

"Is there one in the pot for us?" Jack asked as he and Gwen walked into the room.

"Oh hi guys, how was the unidentified flying object?" Rose asked as she poured two extra mugs of tea.

"Identified," Jack said with a grin. "It was a group of Vinvocci astronomers and astrophysicist. They had registered a request to fly through our system to study the planets."

Gwen took up the explanation from there. "Apparently they had also requested an atmospheric entry for Earth, but that request got lost in the bureaucracy and we never received it."

"One of the advantages of being Deputy Director is that I could authorise the flight and let them get on their way. A bit of galactic détente if you like," Jack said as he took the offered mug of tea.

John picked up one of the mugs and gave Rose a peck on the cheek, leaving a chocolaty lip mark from a half eaten biscuit. "Oops, sorry Love."

Rose rolled her eyes and wiped her cheek as she picked up her mug and headed for the couch.

"John, have you got a minute?" Gwen asked. "I've been doing some recreational maths and must have made a mistake, but I can't spot where."

"Really? That's not like you. Let's sit at the table and have a look."

They sat down and Gwen took out her tablet PC. "A few days ago, I sat in the restaurant with Roger from Earth Sciences, y'know, the seismologist? We were talking about the recent spate of earthquakes and eruptions and statistical probabilities."

She opened an email that Roger had sent her which had a spreadsheet attachment. "He sent me all this data of historical tectonic activity."

John put his 'brainy' specs on and took a sip of his tea while he looked over the numbers on the screen.

"Mmmmm," he said.

"What?" Gwen asked as she looked closer at the screen.

"A lovely cup of tea," he said with a grin. "So where's your maths then?"

Gwen displayed her statistical analysis on the tablet. "I applied the Weibull - Log - Weibull transition of interoccurrence time of earthquakes, which on its own was unremarkable." John could see the complex calculations on the screen.

"I then looked at the volcanic eruptions using the maximum likelihood method. I then used the Anderson-Darling, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Chi-squared analysis to test the fit of the distribution, again with unremarkable results." Again, there were complex equations to demonstrate her point.

"Now, here's where it gets remarkable. I combined the two data sets with a Weibull probability to represent a generalisation of the exponential distribution, but I must have made an error because these results would suggest some outside influence on tectonic stresses," Gwen said.

John pushed the specs onto the bridge of his nose and leaned forward to scrutinise the calculations. His Gallifreyan brain quickly crunched the numbers and came to a disturbing conclusion.

"You haven't made an error Gwen," John said quietly. "Something is causing an increase in tectonic stresses within the planet." He took off his specs and put them in his pocket and then took out his smart phone, selecting a custom made application.

Rose was sitting with Jack on the couch, chatting while they drank their tea and watched the news. She spun around to look at John as she heard the TARDIS materialising on the Standby Room landing pad. He had used the emergency call function on his phone to remotely operate the TARDIS.

"John, what's wrong?" Rose asked. She'd picked up his concern through their telepathic link.

"I'm not sure, but we need to go into orbit and scan the planet."

They finished their tea and moved towards the TARDIS.

"I hope we're invited," Jack said as he and Gwen moved towards them.

"Of course," John said. "Wouldn't dream of leaving you behind."

A few minutes later, they were in a geostationary orbit above the equator on the Greenwich meridian. John was running a multitude of scans of the planet and the surrounding space, until a half hour later and one orbit of the Earth, he had acquired sufficient data for them to return to Torchwood.

The rest of the Watch glanced over at them to see if anything interesting had occurred as they stepped out of the TARDIS. The coming and going of the TARDIS was commonplace now and didn't cause a stir like it used to.

The TARDIS computer had performed the statistical analysis of the scan data and uploaded it to John and Gwen's tablets, as well as the Torchwood mainframe. They sat at the table and looked over the data, while Rose and Jack waited for them to explain.

"Do you see it Gwen?" John asked her.

"Well, yes. But I don't know what I'm looking at. What does it mean?"

"It means someone is messing around with transdimensional physics," he replied.

"Hang on," Rose said. "Isn't that what Malcolm Taylor wrote a paper on with Roger Stansfield when they built the dimension jump devices?"

John gave her a proud smile. "That's right, it is. We need to call a meeting with Pete and the section heads, this is global."

The large table in the executive meeting room was full of people from a diverse variety of departments. Members of Blue Watch sat on chairs against the wall so that they could hear the proceedings.

John was standing with the media remote in his hand.

"Gwen O'Toole was looking at the data on tectonic activity and running some analysis on it when she spotted an anomaly," John started.

"The numbers themselves are difficult to appreciate, but if you put them into a graph…." He displayed the graph on the screen. "You can see that there is a significant increase that is above the random norm."

"I hadn't spotted that," Roger Ellis the seismologist said. "What could cause such a thing?"

"To be fair, you wouldn't spot it unless you were looking for it and you were a maths genius. Fortunately, Torchwood has got two." He waggled his eyebrows at Gwen. "As for what's causing it, I'm not certain, but I do know where the cause originates, and I have got an idea."

He clicked the remote to display the TARDIS data. "We went into orbit and scanned the planet. Magnetometer, gravitometer, radar, all the usual and unusual tests. We found that the Earth is 'ringing' like a bell."

He clicked again and a graphic cross section of the Earth from above was displayed.

"The mantle of the Earth is being gently vibrated from three points on the surface. [Click] Here in Egypt, [click] Mexico, [click] and Cambodia."

Three lots of curved lines, looking like loudspeaker symbols were shown radiating through the globe at 90 degrees to each other were displayed.

"What's causing these vibrations?" Jack asked.

John clicked the remote. Three pyramids appeared on the screen, the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, 30 miles northeast of Mexico City. Prang Pyramid in Koh Ker, Cambodia. And the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza in Egypt.

"These three pyramids are just like loudspeaker cones standing on the ground. Something inside them is causing an oscillation that is being magnified by the shape of the structure."

"Who in God's name would want to shake our planet to pieces?" Pete asked.

"I don't think that's the intention," John answered, as he clicked the remote again. A view of Earth sitting on a 'rubber' graph paper was on the screen, the kind of view that showed how gravity distorted space. Ripples could be seen spreading outwards like a pebble being dropped in a pond.

"The three oscillations are at three different frequencies. This creates harmonic resonances that 'wobble' gravity, which in effect 'wobbles' reality."

He looked at Rose as he explained the next bit. "Do you remember when the void ship smashed its way into the other universe? It fractured the walls of reality. And then, when your team here developed the dimension cannon, they 'melted' a hole through the walls. Well, these oscillations are turning the walls into jelly."

Rose had a sudden and emotionally troubling thought. "John, does this mean we could travel back to the other universe?"

John just stood silently looking at her, his expression was unreadable. "Er, yes, yes we could…. Would you want to?"

She thought about it out loud so that John could pick it up. The 'other' Doctor was there. Not the 'real' Doctor, because they were both very real, but the 'other' Doctor, his brother. All her old friends were there, her old life, and that was the point, it was old.

Here she had him, her husband, her son, her Mum, her new Dad, her new friends, and they had their new TARDIS. It was just a bit of nostalgia, nothing more.

"No," she said with a smile. "My life is here with you. But if someone is wobbling the walls of our reality, like Dad said, who's doin' it and why?"

"Now THAT is a very good question," John said. "Someone living today knows how to operate equipment that was built thousands of years ago. And then you have to ask yourself, 'is that someone leaving, or inviting someone else in'?"

"Well whatever the answer is, we have to 'switch off' the pyramids before the planet falls apart," Pete said.

"I agree," John said. "We'll go to Koh Ker in Cambodia. We explored the pyramid when we were on honeymoon."

"And I've visited Giza before," Jack said.

"I went on holiday to Mexico a few years ago," Julia said before anyone else in the Watch could claim a place on the mission.

Pete had a wry smile on his face. "Okay, I think we can wind up this meeting. Go home teams and pack while I get logistics to book your flights. We have no jurisdiction in these countries so you'll have to be tourists."

"Rose and myself will take the TARDIS," John started.

"Hold on John," Pete said. "Reality check. Don't you think a celebrity couple just appearing in the middle of Cambodia is going to look a bit suspicious?"

"Surely you're not suggesting we sit on an airship for hours on end while the world rattles itself to pieces below are you?"

"All I'm saying is that a covert operation with you two is going to be hard enough as it is, without you drawing attention to yourselves by popping up out of thin air."

Rose had an idea. "Here's a compromise, why don't we land the TARDIS at an airport. You could log a flight plan that would match our time of arrival, and we could pass through arrivals and get our passports stamped."

Pete had an enormous grin on his face. "That's my girl. I can see who's the brains in your marriage."

"Oi!" John said in mock offence. He had to admit, when it came to everyday human affairs, Rose had him beat hands down.

"Pete, we need to go to S.O.U (Special Operations Unit) and start planning a mission profile," Andy McNab, the S.O.U leader said.

"Okay. I'll call the Foreign Office and see if I can get an embassy official to meet each of the teams at the airports."

In the Special Operations briefing room, John was giving his assessment of the situation from the data he'd gathered from the TARDIS.

"As far as I can tell, there will be an oscillator somewhere near the centre of each pyramid. We need to find them and shut them down."

"What will the oscillators look like?" Jack asked.

"Well, they can be purely electronic, or like a digital watch, they can use a crystal."

"Crystal?" Chrissie Anderson said. She was the Technical Operations lead, responsible for all the high tech equipment used at Torchwood. "Crystals, crystals…. There was something on the news months ago. What was it?"

She logged onto her computer and used a search engine to look for the words 'crystal' and 'pyramid'.

"Oh wow! I think I've hit the jackpot!"

The group moved around her workstation. "In January, the American Museum of Natural History in New York was broken into and the Teotihuacan Sapphire, a Mesoamerican pyramidal gemstone of exceptional quality was stolen," she read.

"In February, the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris had the Cheops Ruby stolen. This ruby is the exact same size and shape as the sapphire."

"Let me guess," John said. "There's a third gemstone?"

"The Prang Emerald," Chrissie said. "We don't know if it's been stolen because it disappeared in 2001 when an anonymous collector bought it from Christie's."

"Mmmm. If a collector had it stolen, I'm betting he'd have reported it to the police," john mused. "I wonder if the collector has anything to do with rattling the planet? Chrissie, while we're exploring the pyramids, can you try and track down this mysterious buyer?"

"That's a big ask, but you know me, I love a challenge."

"Right then people," Andy said. "Your mission. Gain access to the pyramids. Locate the oscillators, which are probably the stolen gemstones, and stop them from oscillating. We'll send your gear in a diplomatic briefcase that you can clear through customs. The embassy staff can open it for you when you leave the airport."

"If the oscillators are these crystals," John mentioned. "They will probably retain some charge. Make sure you pack an inductance coil in the briefcase to syphon off any residual energy."

Andy nodded in acknowledgement and set off with Chrissie to assemble their kit.

Pete came into the room and announced that embassy officials would meet each team at the airport. John and Rose went over to him.

"Dad, would you and Mum mind havin' EJ while we're away?" Rose asked.

"Of course sweetheart, you don't have to ask, we'd love to have him."

Rose hugged him around the neck and he patted her back.

"We've got everything we need in the TARDIS, so we'll stop off at yours on the way so we can spend some time with him before we go. Andy and Chrissie are just puttin' our equipment together, they shouldn't be too long."

"Tell you what, I'll knock off early and come with you. Director privilege," he grinned.

John and Rose flew the TARDIS together, while Pete looked on in admiration. They were a proper team, in every sense of the word, and they moved around the console in a coordinated dance. When the time rotor stopped, they walked down the ramp and opened the door into the living room of Tyler mansion.

In front of them, Jackie was smiling with EJ in her arms, whose face lit up when he saw his parents.

"Where's my best little man then?" Rose cooed as she held out her arms for him. EJ reached out excitedly and she took him and enveloped him in a gentle hug. As Jackie handed him over, Rose noted that her expression was a bit 'off'.

"Are you alright Mum?" Rose asked her.

Jackie gave her a look that said 'no'. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Rose knew that 'I'm fine', meant that she wasn't.

"John, I'm just going to have a walk around the garden with Mum. Okay?"

"Sure sweetheart. See you in a bit." He'd picked up her concern for Jackie and knew she needed to have a chat.

"So what is it Mum? You've had somethin' on your mind for a while now," Rose asked as they walked over the manicured lawn.

Jackie didn't reply straight away, she was mulling it over before she spoke. She wanted it to come out right.

"It's you and that TARDIS of yours," she started. "You've been goin' away a lot lately, and seem to be goin' away more an' more."

Rose was a bit surprised by this. "Well yeah, it's a great way to travel. How is that a problem?"

"You don't know what it's like Rose, stayin' behind an' wonderin' if you're ever comin' back."

Ah, now it made sense to Rose. She remembered her Mum talking to her before she got stranded in this universe.

'You'll keep on changing', she had said. 'And in forty years time, fifty, there'll be this woman, this strange woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human.'

Rose reached out and hugged her Mum. "Oh Mum, I'm sorry. I never realised you felt like that." She released the hug and held her shoulders at arms length so that she could look at her face.

"We have a home now Mum, a home that we love. I have a son that needs that home and stability. And John 'does' domestic. I know that's unbelievable, but he does. I think it's the 'Donna' in him," she said with a smile.

Jackie looked questioningly at her daughter. "Are ya sure Love? Because I know how powerful the attraction of that life was for yer. Yer jumped across a universe to get it back, remember?"

"And I got it back Mum! I have got the best of both worlds. I can have my cake and I can eat it. We will be travellin' in the TARDIS, we have a tropical paradise that we can go an' hide in when we need to get away from it all. But we will ALWAYS come back."

Jackie pulled Rose back into a hug. "That's all I needed to know Love. Thank you."

As they walked back through the French windows, John told Rose that the flight plan had been logged and that they would land at Siem Reap airport at 22:00, as Cambodia was seven hours ahead of Britain. They would stay at the Park Hyatt overnight, in keeping with their celebrity status.

John was hugging and tickling EJ, who was chuckling at his father. He gave him a gentle, loving kiss on his forehead before handing him over to Jackie.

"We'd better get going Love," John said to Rose.

"Yeah." She kissed EJ on his head. "Be a good boy for Grandma."

They walked over to the TARDIS. "We'll be right back," John said, and they stepped into the TARDIS and closed the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Notes: Indie and Lara, sorry, the Doctor and Rose travel to Cambodia to switch off the pyramid. As usual though, these things never go as planned.  
Thanks to Google Earth for the views of Cambodia that allowed me to envisage the area and give some authenticity to the story.

**Chapter 3**

The TARDIS materialized on the flight path to Siem Reap International Airport in Cambodia. She was disguised as a two seater airship and was on final approach. John contacted air traffic control for permission to land. There was only one runway, and domestic flights were slotted in between commercial flights.

They flew down the runway and taxied to one of the stands, where they shut down the console and prepared to disembark.

"You ready?" John asked as he picked up the locked briefcase.

"Yeah, let's go." She grabbed the handle of their wheeled suitcase with one hand, and John's hand with the other as they headed for the door.

In the terminal, they headed for the green channel of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Customs & Excise Department.

"Doctor and Mrs. Smith, welcome to Cambodia," the Customs & Excise officer said. "I see you have been here before," she observed from the stamps on their passports.

Rose smiled at the woman. "Yes, we were on honeymoon last time. We loved it so much, we decided to come back."

"Ah, that is so nice for you," she said with a smile. "Anything to declare?"

"Just this diplomatic briefcase for the embassy," John said. "There should be an official coming to meet us."

The officer checked the seal on the briefcase to make sure it was genuine.

"That all seems in order. If you would like to place your bag on the conveyer, and empty your pockets into the trays please."

John lifted the wheeled suitcase onto the conveyer belt ready to go through the x-ray machine. Rose walked through the metal detector, followed by John and the alarms remained silent. As they refilled their pockets, the officer called to them.

"Dr and Mrs. Smith, I forgot to ask if you would sign this for me please."

"I thought we'd already signed the visa paperwork," John said as they walked over to the desk.

"Oh you have," she said sheepishly. "This is for my daughter, she is a fan." She held up an old copy of 'Chat' magazine which had their picture on the front. "Please, would you mind? Her name is Chakriya."

Rose smiled at the woman. Since they had been on the Michael Parkinson show, the media in Britain had lost some of its initial interest in them. To be recognised in a far flung corner of the globe by the mother of a young fan was, well, quite charming really.

They signed the magazine, with 'best wishes to Chakriya'. The woman's face lit up with a smile.

"Oh thank you so much. She will treasure this."

Rose's smile matched the woman's in intensity. "You're welcome."

"Enjoy your stay. Ah, it looks like the embassy official is here for the briefcase," the woman said, as she looked past them.

A man in a suit with a card saying 'Smith' came through the doors. John and Rose walked up to him.

"Isn't that a coincidence, our name's Smith as well," he said with a cheeky grin.

"Shut up," Rose said, playfully slapping his arm and laughing.

"Dr and Mrs. Smith, my name is Edward Bosley. I'm an Attaché from the British Embassy in Phnom Penh. I happened to be close by today so the Ambassador asked me to meet you."

"Very nice to meet you Edward," John said shaking his hand. "I'm John, and this is Rose."

"Hello," Rose said, shaking his hand as well.

"I have a car outside and a key for the case. I'll drop you at your hotel. The Park Hyatt wasn't it?"

"That's right," John said. "You've been well briefed."

They headed out of the doors into the warm, humid night air. John lifted the suitcase into the boot of Edward's Hyundai. John and Rose climbed into the back of the car and waited for Edward to drive.

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a security key which he handed over to John.

"Here, you'll need this to open the briefcase. I understand it's your high tech equipment that might have caused a bit of a stir in customs."

John broke the seal on the handle and used the key to open the case.

"Yeah, it's a bit of a covert operation and we don't want to attract too much attention," he said.

They started sorting out their equipment. There was a folded holdall that they opened and started to fill with scanners, stun guns and a flexible 'rope' of cable that was the inductance coil.

The car pulled out of the airport onto Airport Road and headed towards National Highway Six, which headed east towards the centre of Siem Reap.

After 15 minutes, they arrived at the hotel, and Edward opened the boot, taking out their luggage. John handed over the briefcase and the broken seal for Edward to take back to the Embassy.

"Are you not stayin' at the Hyatt?" Rose asked.

Edward laughed. "Not on a public servant's expenses, no. I'm at the Seng Live Angkor guesthouse on the outskirts of town."

"Oh I'm not having that," John said with a smile. "You're our liaison here. Come on, you're having a room on us."

"I couldn't possibly," Edward started to protest.

Rose grabbed, and then hugged his arm. "C'mon Attaché to the British Embassy, we have a reputation to maintain. And a couple of celebrity agents letting their liaison stay in a guesthouse across town wouldn't look good now, would it?" She gave him her cheeky smile.

"Well, when you put it like that." He handed his car keys over to the valet who would park the car. At the reception desk they checked in and rented a room for Edward. They also hired a 4x4 for the morning so that they could make their way into the jungle and to the Prang Pyramid of Koh Ker.

* * *

It was morning, and the bedside phone rang gently. John carefully reached across to answer it, trying not to disturb Rose who was lying across his chest.

"Hello?" he asked quietly.

"Good morning Dr. Smith. This is your alarm call, it is 07:00."

"Oh, right, thank you." He put the phone down and kissed Rose's hair.

"Wakey wakey sleepy head."

"Mmmph?" She yawned and flickered her eyes open. "Hello," she smiled.

"Hello. Did you sleep well?" he grinned.

"Eventually, when a certain someone let me," she purred.

John chuckled. "If you go and run the shower, we can have a repeat performance. I'll call room service and have some breakfast sent up."

"Mmmm, that sounds like an offer I can't refuse." She slid over him and climbed out of bed to head for the en suite. He distractedly watched her pert buttocks dancing as she crossed the room, while he called room service.

The shower cubicle was filling with steam from the hot water. It felt so good on her head and down her body as she used the apple scented shower gel.

She heard the door slide open and shut behind her, and John's hands wrapped around her abdomen as he pressed up against her back.

One hand headed south while the other caressed her boobs, while he nibbled her neck and earlobe. She groaned with pleasure and her soap-slippy body turned in his arms to face him and kiss him passionately.

Breaking the kiss, she squeezed some gel on his head and massaged his scalp while he did the same for her. She rubbed his shoulders, chest and abdomen, smiling at him with her tongue between her teeth.

He grinned and did the same, rubbing the gel around her shoulders, lingering on her boobs, and then her taut abdomen. They both raised their eyebrows in anticipation and worked the gel into the intimate and private areas of their bodies.

They kissed again, and Rose wrapped her legs around his waist as she lifted herself onto him. John supported her weight by holding her buttocks and leaning her against the tiled wall. They both giggled as her back made a squeaking noise against the tiles as John made rhythmic movements with his hips.

Rose's giggles turned into gasps of ecstasy in his ear, and her nails gently scratched his back as she reached her climax. John's legs shuddered slightly as he reached his climax with a groan.

"Phew! That reminds me of our honeymoon," Rose said breathlessly.

John just chuckled and finished washing her body, kissing each bit that he cleaned. Rose returned the favour and turned off the water. They dried each other off, put on the towelling bath robes and went to have breakfast.

After breakfast, they loaded the Suzuki Jeep and set off east along the National Highway Six for about 20 miles before turning north at Damdek. After that, there was a gruelling 60 miles of rural roads and dirt tracks to look forward to, before reaching Koh Ker in the middle of the jungle.

John was wearing khaki trousers, black t-shirt, hiking boots and a bush hat. Rose had plaited her hair into pigtails that hung on each shoulder. She had a black vest top, denim shorts that accentuated her great legs, and the same style hiking boots as john.

John had joked that she looked like 'Lara Croft', while he kept nibbling her neck as she tried to lace up her boots.

After a gruelling three hour drive, they finally came to the clearing in the jungle and the seven tiered Prang Pyramid of Koh Ker. They strapped on their utility belts and backpacks and faced the temple.

"Wow! That's impressive," Rose said, looking up at the 118 feet of vegetation encrusted stone. "How do we get in?"

"Well, I think we'll have to climb that bamboo ladder, probably to the third tier and see if we can find the entrance."

They walked to the temple and started to climb the rickety ladder that lay on the pyramid at an angle of about 45 degrees. They reached the third tier and stepped onto the rubble strewn stone. John took his sonic screwdriver out of the pouch on his belt and adjusted the setting. Rose removed her Torchwood scanner from her backpack.

They carefully walked over the rubble to a corner of the building and looked along the ledge. There was more of the same rubble and vegetation leading to the stone steps slope that ran up the centre of each face.

"Did aliens build all this John?"

"It was probably Humans that built it, but aliens that designed and commissioned it." He was scanning the steps as he spoke. "Ah, here we are. Have a scan of that step; see what you make of it."

Rose stumbled her way over to him and scanned the steps.

"There's a cavity behind them. If we go up…." She carefully climbed up onto the next tier. "No cavity behind these. I'm betting one of these steps moves to reveal an opening."

John grinned up at her. "Just what I was thinking. if someone has been here to put the crystal inside, then there should be some evidence of disturbed dust or vegetation," he said as he scanned the steps in more detail. Rose climbed back down to join him on the steps.

"Ah, here we are then." He took a large survival knife out of its scabbard and prised it under one of the stone steps and levered it up until he could get his fingers under it.

"Careful John. Don't crush your fingers." She stooped down beside him and put her fingers under as well. As they both lifted, the step tilted up at the front, and the rear part under the step above, tilted down to form a chute.

They stood grinning at each other.

"Well?" she said, nodding down at the dark hole.

"Well?" he said back. "Allons-y Wife. Allons-y." He strapped on a super bright LED headlight from his backpack and handed one to Rose. He lowered himself into the hole and slid down.

"Are you okay John?" her voice echoed into the darkness. She was temporarily blinded when he looked back up at her from ten feet below.

"Oops, sorry," he said looking down. "Yeah. It's a short slide to the floor. Come on down and I'll catch you."

She slid down and he caught her around the waist as she pitched forward, she put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. They stood looking at each other in the twilight and stole a quick kiss before looking around.

They were in a stone tunnel that seemed to lead further into the depths of the pyramid. They walked over the large flagstone floor, following the tunnel to the apparent centre of the temple.

They were at a crossroads of tunnels, each one apparently coming from one face of the pyramid. They checked each tunnel in turn to the end and found nothing, finally returning to the crossroads.

"Now what?" she asked him.

"There must be a secret entrance to a chamber somewhere."

Rose smiled. "I bet one of these torch holders on the wall opens a door or somethin'."

"You've been watching too many adventure movies," he told her. "It's never anything like that."

Rose held onto the torch holder and lifted herself off the floor. Nothing happened.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right." She walked over the crossroad and pulled herself up on another holder. This time though, she slowly lowered to the floor as the holder tilted downwards.

"Or maybe not," John said, as they heard a rumbling of stone and saw the central flagstone pivot so that one part raised and another lowered.

They looked into the hole and could see a faint but vivid green light 15 feet below. There was a set of bamboo steps leading down to the floor.

"It looks like we've found what we came for," he said.

They put their equipment away and climbed carefully down the ancient ladder, uncertain as to whether it would hold their weight. It creaked a bit, but seemed very secure as they reached the floor and stepped off.

They were in a pyramidal chamber, 15 feet high and 30 feet along each wall. There in front of them, in the centre of the chamber was the Prang Emerald. It was standing on a four foot tall, four inches across, stone plinth. It was glowing with an intense, vivid green light.

John scanned the plinth and emerald, before taking off his backpack and taking out the inductance coil. He placed it over the plinth and lowered it to the floor.

"Okay, let's divert the power from the emerald to the coil." He flicked a switch on the block attached to the coil and a discharged lithium battery started to charge, drawing energy from the plinth.

John checked the emerald with his sonic screwdriver. Everything seemed to be okay and he nodded to Rose, who grabbed the emerald to lift it off the plinth.

WHAM!

There was a discharge of green energy that surrounded her body and threw her across the chamber. The emerald dropped out of her limp hands and rolled across the stone floor.

"ROSE!?" Her vision was blurred and everything sounded distant and echoey.

"Rose! Babe, are you okay?" She could feel the darkness calling her as her head buzzed with the residual energy.

"Torchwood Despatch. Agent down. Request immediate MedEvac. Repeat agent Rose Tyler is down. Request immediate MedEvac."

'Why does John sound like Mickey?' was her final thought before she passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

Notes: Rose wakes up in the Torchwood Hospital with amnesia. Or does she? Everyone seems to have a different memory of events to hers.

**Chapter 4**

She could hear the beep of a cardiac monitor and the general murmur of noises that you associate with a hospital ward.

'Rose Tyler?' she thought. 'He said agent Rose Tyler was down'. She cautiously opened her eyes and waited for them to focus. She was in a hospital bed in a hospital room. In a Torchwood hospital room to be precise.

"Oh, you're awake," the nurse said who had been writing in her notes.

"Mmnnh," Rose muttered. "What happened? How did I get here?"

"All in good time Rose. Take it easy, I'll let the doctor know you've woken up. There's someone who's been standing vigil at your bedside all the time you've been here. It's typical, he only just popped out to use the toilet and you wake up."

Rose smiled. That was so like John to be at her side, even when he couldn't do anything.

"Ah, here he comes now. I'll go get the doctor."

To say Rose was shocked, stunned and gob smacked, didn't even begin to describe how she felt when Mickey Smith walked into her room.

"Hey Babe. How'ya feelin'?" he said with his lopsided smile.

"Oh my God, Mickey! What are you doin' here?" she held out her arms and enveloped him in a hug.

"Hey, what's this? I'm happy to see you too. You gave me quite a scare back there in that temple," he said.

'What is he on about?' Rose thought in confusion. "How did you get here? Did you come through when the walls were all wobbly?"

"Wha? I think that energy discharge must have scrambled your brain Babe."

"Yeah, I think it did a bit. Anyway, it's not important right now. You're here and that's brilliant. Have you seen John, I thought he'd be here?"

It was Mickey's turn to be confused. "John?"

The only John they both knew was John Armstrong in Accounts who dealt with payroll enquiries.

"What, John Armstrong?"

Rose rolled her eyes at the joke. "Very funny. Now are you goin' to tell me where he is, or do I have to go and find him." She then had a thought.

"It's you isn't it? You're using a shimmer. Oh you had me goin' then," she laughed.

At that point the doctor came in and looked at her charts. "How are you feeling Miss Tyler? You had quite a lot of energy pass through your body."

"I feel fi…. Miss Tyler? You need to update my records doctor, I'm Mrs. Smith now. I thought everyone knew that, what with us bein' such celebrities."

The doctor's face took on a look of concern. He started going through standard neurological assessment questions. What was the date? Who was president? When was her birthday? Everything seemed fine except for the fact that she was convinced that she was married.

"Is everythin' alright doc?" Mickey asked.

"I just want Alice DiMaggio to have a look at you if you don't mind Miss…. er, Rose."

"Somethin's the matter, in'it?" Mickey said.

"It's just a precaution, that's all," the doctor said as he left the room.

"Mickey, how could he get my name wrong? I mean everyone here knows I married John. And if you're not him usin' a shimmer, then where is he?" She was starting to panic now.

"Mickey, what's happened to him? You would tell me if anythin' had happened to him wouldn't you?"

Before Mickey could answer, Rose's best friend and past counsellor, Alice, walked into the room.

"Rose, how are you? The doctor said you seem a little confused." She gave Rose a reassuring hug and rubbed her back.

"A little confused?" she said haughtily. "I'm downright baffled at the moment Alice. No one will tell me what's happened to John."

Alice spotted the distress in Rose and went into 'counsellor' mode.

"Tell me what you remember before you woke up here. When did you last see John?"

"We'd taken the TARDIS to Siem Reap International Airport in Cambodia, and spent the night at the Park Hyatt." She smiled at the memory of the very comfortable king sized bed and the bedroom gymnastics that had gone on.

"The next mornin', we drove to the Prang Pyramid in Koh Ker. We found our way into the central chamber where John deactivated the crystal. When I picked the crystal up, there must have been some feed back or somethin' because I remember a green light around me and then I woke up here."

Mickey was about to speak when Alice raised a hand to stop him.

"The TARDIS you say? Is John a Time Lord by any chance?" Alice asked her as she held her hand.

Rose scrutinized Alice's face. "C'mon Alice, you know he's part Time Lord, part Human."

"Of course he is, sorry. And how long have you been married now?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me it's affecting you as well. My chief bridesmaid can't remember when I got married. August 5th, 2014."

The door to her room opened and her parents popped their heads around the door.

"Is it alright to come in?" Jackie asked.

"Oh Mum," Rose said holding out her arms. Everything would be alright once she'd had a hug from her Mum.

"Sweetheart, we were so worried about you when you wouldn't wake up." Jackie sat on the bed and rocked Rose like she always had when she was upset.

"I'm fine Mum. I just need to find John and go home." She then realised that both her parents were in the room. She looked between the two of them with rising concern. She needed to ask a question, but was dreading the answer.

"Mum, Dad, where's EJ?"

Jackie glanced at Pete and then back to Rose.

"This John and EJ, are they friends of yours Love? Did ya meet them in Cambodia?"

Rose's breath caught in her chest. She couldn't breath. She felt as though she had been punched in the stomach as nausea rose in her throat.

When she spoke, tears trickled down her cheeks. "Mum, I'm scared," she confided. Jackie instinctively grabbed her into a protective hug as she started to sob.

"John is my husband, [sob] and Eyulf is our son. [sob] Your grandson Mum. How could you forget your own grandson?"

Alice ushered Pete and Mickey out of the door and closed it behind her, leaving Jackie to do what mothers do best.

"Alice, what's going on?" Pete asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think it's some sort of fugue state brought on by the trauma of that energy discharge that she experienced. Was she alright during the mission up to that point?" she asked Mickey.

"Yeah, everythin' was fine. We took the airship to Cambodia, met the guy from the embassy and went to the hotel. The next day we drove to the temple and deactivated the pyramid."

"Hmm. Rose seems to be confabulating a story that she actually got the Doctor back, married him and had a son by him. I thought she was finally coming to terms with the failure of the dimension cannon project. This accident must have triggered the dissociative fugue."

"Is it serious?" Pete asked. "I mean will she get better, can you help her?"

"Oh yes, don't worry. These things are only temporary. It's like a form of self induced amnesia, where her brain creates a story to fill in the gaps. The story is usually one based on desires of what the patient would like their life to be like."

"Is there anythin' we can do to help her?" Mickey asked.

"Just do what you did when she first came to our world. Show her love, kindness and be patient."

"Thanks Alice," Pete said as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "Do you think it's alright to go in now?"

Alice nodded and opened the door for them to enter. Rose had her face buried in Jackie's shoulder. Jackie looked over at them with sad concern on her face.

"Well?" she asked.

Pete sat on the other side of the bed and squeezed Rose's shoulder, trying to reassure and comfort her.

"Rose? Rose, look at me."

Rose took some shuddering breaths and sniffed before raising her head from the comfort of her mother's shoulder. He had an overwhelming urge to hold her and protect her. This usually strong and independent woman looked so weak and afraid. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying.

"Alice thinks that the accident has caused some sort of amnesia, and that your mind is trying to compensate for the missing time that you were unconscious."

"Wha? Are you tryin' to tell me that the last two years of my life have been a dream or somethin'?" she said angrily.

"No, no sweetheart. Don't get yourself upset. It's just that things will seem a bit confusing at the moment," Pete said trying to placate her. It didn't work.

"UPSET?! I'm way past upset. I'm borderin' on homicidal. My family disappear without a trace and nobody seems to care. I'm fit to kill somebody. I'll give you upset!"

"Now Rose, calm down," Jackie said trying to hold her hand.

Rose snatched her hand away. It was a conspiracy, she was certain of it. Had they all been brainwashed, or were they all using shimmers? Were the alien lizards after her son again, or had someone taken John and EJ because they were part Gallifreyan?

"Calm down? Mum, imagine if Dad and Tony suddenly disappeared. Hang on; you do still have Tony don't you?" Rose asked, uncertain of anything she thought she knew.

"Of course we've still got Tony. He's at nursery school," Jackie reassured her.

"Well, imagine one day you go to collect him from school and no one knows who he is. And you go home and no one's ever heard of Pete Tyler. Mum, that's what's happened to me, and it's scarin' me. I don't know what's happened and I don't know what to do."

Jackie could empathise with her daughter. If it happened to her she would fall apart. She hadn't heard Alice's explanation of what might be wrong with Rose, and to be honest, she didn't care. Rose was her daughter and her daughter needed her.

Rose was wringing her hands, and realised that an object that she usually fiddled with when she was nervous or upset was missing.

"Where's my ring? Where's my wedding ring? That'll prove I'm tellin the truth."

"Check the bedside cabinet. It might be in there," Mickey suggested.

Pete pulled out the draw and had a rummage through the contents. There was an envelope that said 'Rose Tyler' on it. He took it out of the draw and handed it to Rose. She opened the envelope and tipped the contents into her lap. There was her watch, some hooped earrings, and…. a white gold ring.

"Oh thank God," she cried. "Here, look. This is my wedding ring."

Now, to be fair, Pete and Mickey were men. They had no idea about women's jewellery. They didn't really notice it unless they had bought it, and then it was usually the women who had chosen it, and they paid for it.

"I've not seen you wear that ring before," Jackie said, looking uncertain on how she should tell her that.

"Look at the engraving. It's Gallifreyan for 'infinity'," she told them, desperate for them to believe her.

Jackie had seen enough weirdness where Rose and that daft alien of hers were concerned. If Rose said that he was her husband, and that he had sired a son, then no matter how weird that sounded, she was willing to buy into it for now. She held out her arms for Rose, waiting for her to accept her unconditional love.

Rose's shoulders sagged and she slowly fell into her mother's embrace, weeping quietly.

"There, there sweetheart. Don't worry. Whatever's gone wrong, we'll fix it."

"Jacks?" Pete asked, looking a little surprised by his wife's response.

"Pete, I've known her a lot longer than you have, and I know somethin's not right. And that bleedin' alien has a weirdness magnet like no other. Mickey can tell yer that," she said.

"In fact, I'm surprised at ya for not considerin' that she might be tellin' the truth," she said, casting an accusing look at Mickey.

"Mum, [sniff] it's not Mickey's fault. I know how unbelievable it sounds."

"Well come on sweetheart, let's get you dressed and get you out of here. The sooner we get you home, the sooner we can sort this out."

Pete and Mickey left the room, while Jackie found her clothes in the small wardrobe. Rose removed the unflattering gown and put on her underwear, the denim shorts, her black vest top and denim jacket. She sat on the bed and laced up her hiking boots.

She recalled lacing them up in their room at the Hyatt. John kept interrupting her by nibbling her neck. She had playfully pushed him away then. How she wished he would do it now, she would pull him into a snog that he wouldn't forget.

Pete had gone to find Alice to tell her about the ring Rose claimed was a wedding ring.

"This could be a worrying development," she explained, as she stood from behind her desk. "She's using objects to reinforce her delusion, trying to prove that her created memories are real. This will prolong the recovery process."

"What can we do?" Pete asked.

Alice smiled. "Provide proof of your own. Show her the evidence of the last two years of her life. Eventually, she will come to accept that the evidence that you have is real and irrefutable."

"Okay, I'll start pulling mission logs, photos and videos for her to look at. Thanks again Alice, you've been a good friend to Rose."

"Oh, Pete. Be gentle with her. Let Rose discover the truth for herself."

He nodded and left the office.

Rose put her backpack over her shoulder and left the hospital room with her Mum. They went to the lifts and Jackie selected the basement car park. They went to Jackie's reserved parking space, where her Audi was waiting for them.

Jackie drove away from Canary Wharf and headed north up Abbott Road, heading for Tyler mansion.

"Where are we goin' Mum?" Rose asked.

"We're goin' home sweetheart, to the mansion."

"Don't tell me I still live at home with my parents," she said despairingly.

"Don't be a silly plum. Your flat is in the quarantine zone, you and Jack are staying with us until the area is declared zombie free."

"Hang on Mum, pull over, I need to talk to ya." Jackie just smiled, thinking she was joking.

"MUM! PULL OVER…. NOW!"

Jackie indicated, pulled up to the curb and put on the hazard lights. She turned in her seat to face Rose.

"Now I know you're upset and are havin' a bad time of it at the moment, but there is no need to shout at me Rose. I'm tryin' to help you."

Rose felt very guilty at snapping at the one person who was willing to even consider that she was telling the truth.

"I'm sorry Mum. I didn't mean to shout, it's just that everythin' that's happenin' to me is SO strange. I don't have a flat, we have a house in Notting Hill. London doesn't have zombies, the TARDIS fixed them."

"If only that were true Love. I've seen 'em on the news. Those poor people, there were children as well Rose, it was awful."

"At the top of the road Mum, turn left onto Mile End Road and go to Notting Hill. I want to show you somethin'." Jackie looked at her suspiciously.

"Humour me, please Mum. And then I'll go home with you, I promise."

"Alright then. And then we go home, right?"

Rose smiled and squeezed her hand. "Right."


	5. Chapter 5

Notes: Will Rose manages to convince her Mum that she's telling the truth. Dr Malcolm Davies thinks he knows what's going on.

**Chapter 5**

Jackie pulled up outside a Victorian town house in Northumberland Place that Rose claimed she and her husband owned. Rose just sat there, staring out of the window with tears in her eyes.

"I have to go in Mum. I have to try and find out what's goin' on."

"Alright Love, I'll wait here. If you find anythin', come an' get me."

Rose leaned over and gave Jackie a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks Mum."

She got out of the car and walked up the steps to the front door.

"Donna?" she said hesitantly, hoping that the house computer would open the door for her. That would mean that at least some of her world was still 'normal'. There was no response so Rose pressed the doorbell.

She heard footsteps approaching and the door was opened by a young woman.

"Hello, can I help you," she asked, as she swept a strand of her curly black hair behind an ear.

"Oh, er, hello. Er, yeah, I wonder if you could," Rose said hesitantly. "This is goin' to sound a bit strange, but I used to live here."

The woman's face lit up with a smile. "Oh really? When was that?"

"Well, that's the strange bit, but can I ask you how long you've lived here?"

"It's been about two years now…. Excuse me for asking, but aren't you Rose Tyler, the Vitex heiress?"

Rose wanted to tell her it was Smith, but thought better of it for now. "Yeah, that's me."

"Would you like to come in? The girls down the gym are going to be so jealous that I've met you."

For once, Rose was really glad that she was a celebrity. It had gotten her an invite into her own house.

"Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? The kettle has just boiled."

"A cup of tea would be lovely thank you. My Mum is in the car, do you mind if she joins us?" Rose asked.

"What?! Jackie Tyler, the wife of one of the richest men in Britain? Oh please bring her in. I'll be dining out for months on this story."

Even though she was feeling so awful, Rose couldn't help but smile at the woman's enthusiasm for celebrity. Rose put her fingers in her lips and whistled her Mum, and signalled for her to come in. The woman looked bemused that the Vitex heiress could whistle like that.

"Is everythin' alright Sweetheart?" Jackie asked as she came up the steps.

"Yeah. This kind lady has invited us in for a cup of tea. I'm sorry, I don't even know your name."

The lady of the house held out her hand. "Sarah Hall. Very pleased to meet you Mrs. Tyler. Please come in."

"Thank you Love, but call me Jackie."

"This way Mum, the Living Room is in here, and the study is through there, and the kitchen is through there." Through the kitchen door, Rose could see the bespoke Bulthaup kitchen/dining room where they had prepared so many meals together.

Jackie saw her daughter trying to keep it together. She reached out and held her hand.

"Come on Love. Come and sit down."

They went into the Sitting Room and sat on the sofa. All the furniture and the decor were different. They heard the tinkling of cups and saucers as Sarah brought the drinks through on a tray and placed them on a low table.

"Now Rose, you said you used to live here? Why would you want to sell, it's lovely here."

Rose looked at her Mum and then back to Sarah. "It's a bit complicated. But before I go into that, can I just tell my Mum a few things about the house."

"Yes, of course," Sarah said.

"Well, kitchen/dining room has a decked garden beyond. I saw that you kept the the Bulthaup kitchen, we love cooking together. The first floor has a master suite and two double bedrooms and a study, which is my office…. was my office," she corrected herself.

"The ground floor study used to be John's office. There are three spacious storage vaults at the front of the house, one of which John converted into his laboratory and is where we kept the TARDIS."

"To be fair sweetheart, you could have got that information off the internet or somethin'," Jackie whispered.

Rose nodded. Okay, that was a fair comment. If she needs more, then she'll get it.

"Your next door neighbours on this side are Anthony and Melissa. They have a two year old daughter called Abby. Anthony is a loss adjuster for an insurance company and Melissa is an interior designer."

"Is she an interior designer? I had no idea," Sarah said.

Rose continued. "On the other side you've got Brendan and Justin. They work in the fashion industry and are a right laugh."

"That's right, their parties are legendary," Sarah laughed.

Rose took a sip of her tea and raised an eyebrow at her Mum. "Well?"

"How did you know all that then?" Jackie asked suspiciously.

"That's what I'm sayin' Mum. How could I know if I didn't live here."

"And when was that Miss Tyler? You haven't said yet," Sarah said.

Tears started to sting her eyes as she thought about it.

"Up until a couple of days ago, I used to live here with my husband John and my son Eyulf. They have gone missing and I'm tryin' to find them."

"But I've lived here for two years," Sarah said, looking confused.

"I said it was complicated," Rose replied.

Sarah took out her phone and started to tap the screen. "Here, look. These are photos taken in this room at Christmas when we had a party. There's Brendan and Justin look with their party hats on."

Rose's jaw dropped and her eyes went wide. "Oh my God Mum. Where's my phone?"

"It's in your backpack sweetheart in the car."

Rose leapt up off the sofa. "I need your keys Mum, quick."

Jackie took her keys out of her coat pocket and handed them over. Rose ran out of the room and out of the front door. Jackie looked at Sarah and gave an embarrassed smile.

"Sorry about this Love," she said sheepishly.

They heard Rose come running back into the house and she burst into the Living Room. She was hurriedly flicking the screen on her smart phone. She stopped suddenly, frozen to the spot. Tears started to run down her cheeks, and the haunted look of loss on her face was heartbreaking.

She looked at Jackie and Jackie's heart nearly stopped at the expression on Rose's face. Silently, Rose held out her phone with a trembling hand.

Jackie took the offered phone and looked at the screen.

She gasped, before whispering. "Oh my God Rose."

The photo was of her and Pete proudly holding a small baby and smiling at the camera. She flicked the image, and there was another photo of her stood in front of the very fireplace she was sitting opposite now, holding the same baby.

Tears started to sting her eyes as she looked up at Rose.

"Is…. is this our grandson?" she asked with a breaking voice.

Rose nodded her head, making her tears drop onto her vest top.

"Are you two alright?" Sarah asked with concern.

Jackie flicked another photo. "Ohhhh, Rose. I'm so sorry." She looked at Sarah and shook her head. "No Love. We are definitely NOT alright."

The screen of Rose's phone showed that daft alien with sticky up hair, side by side with her daughter, and her grandson being held between them. The look of love and pride on their faces was unmistakable and undeniable.

Jackie reached over and hugged her hurting daughter, as both of them broke down and started to sob. How the hell were they going to fix this? Sarah hesitantly stood and left the room to do what Brits did at times like this, she went to make another pot of tea.

* * *

Pete was in his office sorting through Rose's file, logging information from the last few years. Such as moving out of the Mansion and buying her own flat by the Thames. He would find some of the photos of Christmas, where she had stayed with them. There was the video as well of Tony opening her present, he had been so excited.

He was also pulling her mission reports with her Operations partner Mickey. The Dimension Cannon Project was a big one, but how would that affect her fugue? She had started so full of hope and enthusiasm, she had even met a woman who travelled with the Doctor and corrected her timeline so that the he survived some disaster or other.

He swallowed hard as the imagined grey, frozen, suffocated face of Rose flashed in his mind. That had been a close call, too close. It was to be her final jump to find the Doctor, and they had said their tearful goodbyes. She was an instant from pressing the button and 'jumping' to the other universe when they called for an abort.

The Earth had disappeared and they had lost the lock on it. If Rose had jumped, she would have been in the vacuum of space with no chance of return for 30 minutes. He shuddered as a cold chill ran down his spine.

They had tried to re-establish the lock of course. They still had the artron energy signal of the TARDIS, and Rose was shouting at them to get a fix inside it. But the TARDIS, being the TARDIS wouldn't let them and then it disappeared, along with Rose's hopes of ever seeing him again.

Pete was putting all the information into one folder that Rose could access on her own when she felt ready, when through his glass fronted office, he saw her and her mother approaching.

'Am I in trouble?' he thought to himself, because by the look on Jackie's face, he was in the kind of trouble that even a big bouquet of flowers wouldn't fix.

She marched into his office and closed the door behind her when Rose had entered.

"Jackie, Love. Rose, Sweetheart. What's up?"

Jackie nodded to Rose and she took out her phone, opened the picture viewer and handed it to her Dad.

"You'd better sit down before ya fall down," Jackie advised him, and they all took seats while Pete flicked through the images on the phone. Pete stared at the phone looking puzzled. He would look up at Jackie and Rose and then back at the phone.

"What's going on?" he asked them. "It isn't what I think it is, is it?"

"That depends on what ya think it is," Jackie said. "Them's photos of our daughter with her husband and son, and the others are of us and our grandson."

Oh God! The Doctor's World of Weirdness strikes again.

"How...? When...? What...?" Pete couldn't form a sentence because his brain couldn't take in the information.

"You'd better get that phone down to whoever it is who checks them sorta things and see that the photos are real. An' when they prove that they are, you're gonna put a team together to sort it."

"What...? How...?" It was fair to say that Pete was in shock.

Jackie rolled her eyes at him. "I've just been to their house Pete. Rose knew everythin' about it. She knew all about the neighbours, even more than the woman who lives there now," she told him.

She paused to catch her breath and compose her thoughts. "Now we have a son-in-law that is lost. Okay, I know me and that barmy alien don't always see eye to eye, but we also have a grandson that's missin', an' I definitely want him back."

Pete took them down to Technical Support so that Chrissie could examine the phone. The first thing she did was back up all the data so that Rose would always have the pictures no matter what. She then started to examine and scrutinise the data. Pete took Jackie and Rose next door to the Standby Room to have a cup of tea.

They sat on the comfy sofas drinking their tea and looking at the news channel, without really watching it. They were all too deep in their own thoughts to enter into a casual conversation. There was nothing casual about a man and his son being wiped from existence.

20 minutes later, Chrissie came to find them with her tablet PC in her hand and sat next to Rose.

"Right then, the photos on the phone were taken between the 15th and 21st of July, 2015," she told them. "A cute kid by the way, who is he?"

They looked at each other awkwardly. "Let's just say we're related," Pete said.

"Okay," Chrissie said, raising a questioning eyebrow. "I also found this video. It's the foxy guy in the photo with the great hair."

She played the video on her tablet and they could see John in a loin cloth, lying in a hammock, on the veranda of a tree house. He had EJ on his lap playing pat-a-cake and making him laugh.

"Oh my God, it's him. It's the Doctor," Pete said.

"Well, sort of," Rose said mysteriously.

"Do you have a timestamp on this Chrissie?" Pete asked her.

"April 27th, 2016."

"Oh Rose, that was your birthday," Jackie said. "Where was it taken?"

Rose wiped a tear from her eye with her fingers. "Beta Pegasi 2, we call it Paradise. John gave me a planet for my birthday Mum. He even built a luxury tree house, how thoughtful was that?"

"Hang on Rose," Chrissie said. "We went out clubbing with you on your birthday. Me, Alice, Gwen, Julia and Sarah. how could that video have been taken?"

"Was there anything else on the phone?" Pete asked before anyone could answer.

"There was a voicemail message dated two weeks ago." She played the message.

'Hi Rose, it's me. I'm in traffic at Tower Hill; they've got temporary lights at the road works so I might be a bit late. See you soon. Love you,' the voice said. Pete and Jackie looked at each other; they had recognised the Doctor's voice.

Rose had held it together for as long as she could, but the video and the message had been the final straw. When Pete and Jackie looked at her she was in floods of tears, with Chrissie hugging her and patting her back.

Pete had a thought about the message. "Chrissie, do you have the number of the phone that the message was sent from? Can we call him back?"

"Oh Pete, that's brilliant," Jackie said, squeezing his hand.

"I already looked into that. The number was even stored in the address book under 'John'. It came back as unregistered, it doesn't exist."

Rose wailed at the mention of him not existing, it was another proverbial nail in his proverbial coffin. Except there wouldn't be a coffin, because there wasn't a body to put in it.

"Right, I've heard enough," Pete said. "I'm calling a briefing. I want you Chrissie, Alice, Andy, Jack, Mickey, Jake, and I want Doctors Taylor and Stansfield there as well." He stood up and headed for the door, turning to look at them before he went through.

"Rose, I promise you that I will move Heaven and Earth to fix this." He turned back and walked out of the door.

* * *

In the Executive Meeting Room, Pete initiated the briefing.

"I've called you all together because we have some people missing and we need to get them back."

"Who?" Andy asked, already preparing himself for a search and rescue mission.

"That will become apparent as the briefing progresses. I'll ask Rose to give her recollection of events leading up to the disappearances." He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay with this Sweetheart?"

She looked up and nodded at him before standing and addressing the meeting. She cleared her throat and made a hesitant start.

"Er, this is going to sound a bit odd, but it's all true," she started. She clicked the media remote and the picture of her, John and EJ appeared on the screen.

"This man is my husband, John Smith. He's sort of related to the man some of you know as the Doctor. He's a kind of twin."

"Rose?" Alice started to enquire, but Pete raised a hand to let Rose continue.

"The baby is our son, Eyulf Jackson Smith." She smiled at Jack Harkness. "His middle name is after you Jack." She then looked at Alice and clicked up another photo, the one of Pete and Jackie holding EJ.

"No, I'm not hallucinating or makin' it up. This is Mum and Dad holding their grandson the day after he was born. Somethin' has changed the timeline, but for some reason, it didn't change it for me. The only thing I can think of, is that the green light that surrounded me in the pyramid must have isolated me from the timeline."

"Fascinating," Dr. Malcolm Taylor said. "Do you know when your timeline changed to cause your family to disappear?"

"I've been thinkin' about that, and I've read some of the mission logs that Dad found for me. I think it's related to the Dimension Cannon Project that failed."

"Really?" Dr. Roger Stansfield said. He'd been one of the key scientists in the development of the cannon.

Rose proceeded to tell the meeting her version of events when the stars started going out. How the project team had managed to keep the lock on the Earth and send her to the Doctor. She gave her report of the events on the Dalek Crucible and the creation of the Human Biological Metacrisis.

Jack leaned forward to give his recollection of the Dalek Crucible.

"You, Jackie and Mickey weren't there Rose. There was the Doctor, Donna, Martha and me. Oh and the Metacrisis Doctor as well. He had the sense to destroy the Daleks after Donna had disabled them."

Mickey then gave his tilt on things from his perspective. "You were devastated when the cannon failed Babe. I didn't see you for a week."

"Don't you remember that I came to stay with you Rose," Alice asked. "I was really concerned that you'd given up on everything, that you'd lost hope."

"No I don't. That's the point, it never happened for me. I came back to this universe with John and started a new life."

"If I may interject," Malcolm said. "It appears that we have a similar situation to that of Donna Noble when she had the 'time beetle' on her back. Rose was able to influence Donna's alternate timeline and prevent the Doctor from being killed. This returned the timeline back to its original course."

"Do you think you can fix my timeline Dr. Taylor?" Rose asked.

"Well, last time we used the temporal shift between the two universes as a way of travelling through time to influence the events leading up to the Donna Noble paradox."

"Is that a yes or a no?" Pete asked.

"Unfortunately it's a no. The Dimension Cannon required a weakness in the walls of reality between the universes to 'fire' through. That weakness repaired itself when the other universe destroyed the Crucible."

"Wait!" Rose said. "We scanned the planet from orbit in the TARDIS. John detected harmonic resonances that 'wobbled' gravity and 'wobbled' reality. He said it turned the walls to jelly so that somethin' could come through. What if we could use the cannon before the walls harden again?"

"You know Malcolm," Roger said. "We never looked beyond the Earth when the pyramids started vibrating the tectonic plates. We just assumed it was a terrorist group trying to destabilize the Western World."

"Good point Roger. If a team could jump to the other universe and set up a Dimension Cannon in that Lever Room, they could jump back into our past and advise us to send Rose before the Earth moves. Let's reactivate the Dimension Cannon Project and see what we can do."

"Malcolm, Roger. It would be a great personal favour to me if you would burn the midnight oil on this," Pete told them. "If you need anything or anyone, let me know. I'll even go and fetch them myself if I have to."

"Well actually Director, we already have everything we need from the old project. We just need to bring it out of storage and have a few technicians to help us put it all back together," Malcolm said.

Chrissie ended a call on her mobile. "Count me in. I've just called hubby and told him I'm going to be working late."

"I'd like to help as well if I can," Jack volunteered.

"Me too," Mickey chipped in.

Rose went all tearful again. "Oh you guys are SO wonderful. How will I ever repay you?"

Alice came over and gave her a long hug. "By putting that smile back on your face, you know…. the one in the photo. I'm so sorry I didn't believe you Rose. What must you think of me? What kind of friend am I?"

"You're my best friend Alice. And I know you're the kind of friend that doesn't jump to conclusions about people. You came to the only logical conclusion that the evidence allowed."

"Roger, Chrissie and myself can take care of this Director. I suggest everyone else goes home and gets some sleep. If it's anything like the old project, you are going to need all the rest you can get."


	6. Chapter 6

Notes: Torchwood assembles a team to try and correct Rose's timeline. But the clock is ticking and she's getting desperate.

**Chapter 6**

Pete drove his BMW past the front of the house and around to the garage, where he reversed it in between Jackie's Audi and his old Land Rover. Rose's Peugeot 308 convertible, which she didn't even know that she owned, was parked on the other side of Jackie's Audi.

They got out of the car, Pete took her hand and they walked towards the front of the house. When they started up the steps, the door opened, and Alistair was there waiting for them. Each time the gates opened, it alerted him to an arrival and he was able to greet them as they got to the door.

"Mr Tyler, you managed to finish on time today. Ah, and Miss Tyler, I'm so glad to see you up and about at last."

Rose reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "Hello Alistair, it's good to see you. I mean it really is good to see that you are here."

Alistair looked a bit puzzled by that comment. "May I say your fancy dress is very good. 'Lara Croft' isn't it? Are you going to a party somewhere?"

"Alistair," Pete said, warning him that it wasn't the time or the place for his acerbic wit.

Rose gave him a weak smile. "It's alright Dad. Sorry Alistair, it's been a bitch of a week so far."

"Oh I am sorry ma'am. I didn't mean to offend."

Rose kissed his cheek again. "No offence taken. You would never offend me Alistair, and don't you dare stop givin' us that attitude, it's often the only highlight of a very bad day."

"Very well ma'am. It's nice of you to say."

They went down the hall and into the Sitting Room, where Jackie was watching the news and Tony was playing with his action figures, waiting for the news to finish so that he could have the children's TV on again. His face lit up when he saw his big sister.

"Rosieee!" He leapt to his feet and ran over to be picked up in a huge hug.

Rose held him under his bottom so that he was at head height.

"Mummy said that you were asleep for three days. Does that mean you were awake for three nights? I bet you were tired if you were awake for three nights. Mummy won't let me stay up late, even when I don't have to go to school. Was it top secret? I bet you were being a secret agent, I bet that's what it was and you can't tell me about it."

"She'd tell yer if you'd let her get a word in edgeways yer little chatterbox," Jackie said.

Rose was laughing, and she gave him a cuddle. Oh, how she hoped that she would be able to hold EJ again like this. She imagined that if he inherited John's gob that his chatter would be ten times worse.

Jackie stood patiently waiting for them to finish their greeting. "Well?" she asked.

"Malcolm, Roger and Chrissie are working into the night to put the old Dimension Cannon back together. Malcolm thinks that they may be able to use the time slip to travel back and correct the timeline," Pete told her.

"Oh that's great. There ya go Sweetheart; they'll soon have you back with your family." She squeezed Rose's arm with gentle encouragement.

"I think I'll go up an' have a shower before dinner. Is my room still my room?" she asked

"Of course it is Sweetheart. It'll always be your room whether you have your own flat, or your own house," Jackie said.

"Thanks Mum, that means a lot at the moment." She left the room and headed up the stairs.

When she came down to dinner, she was wearing jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, with her hair loose around her shoulders. Jack and Mickey had finished their shift, and were in the dining room ready to eat.

After the meal, they sat and watched some TV. They couldn't really concentrate on anything because they were all wondering how the Dimension Cannon was coming along. All except for Tony, who was playing with his toys.

When it came to Tony's bedtime, Rose asked if she could take him up. Tony was certainly enthusiastic about this; his sister usually told him a story of her adventures with the man with sticky up hair.

Rose recalled an adventure John had told her, about meeting William Shakespeare with Martha, and how he fought three witches who weren't really witches. They were Carrionites, and in 1599, they planned to use Shakespeare's new play, Love's Labour's Won, to free the rest of their race from the Darkness and take over Earth. They considered humanity as a pestilence, and wanted to replace them to establish the 'Millennium of Blood'.

Tony was hanging on every word, wanting to know how the Doctor beat the witches. He also wanted to know who Martha was, she hadn't mentioned her before. Rose then remembered that from Tony's point of view, she had never left this world, never met the Doctor again and knew nothing of his continuing adventures in the other universe.

After she had finished telling the story, with Tony cheering at the end, she was surprised that after sleeping for three days, she had tired quickly and was ready for bed herself.

The next morning though, Rose was awake early and felt refreshed. She was eager to get back to Torchwood to see what progress had been made. She had breakfast with her family and then got a lift in with Jack and Mickey

The Lever Room had been transformed overnight to its former glory. Malcolm, Roger and Chrissie had worked through the night, staggering their rest periods so that they could each get some sleep in turn.

Chrissie came into the room, rubbing a towel over her hair. She had just woken up and had been down to the locker room to have a shower and then grabbed some toast and orange juice from the Standby Room.

"Wow! You guys are miracle workers," Rose said, giving her a hug in greeting.

"It was the shift rotation of engineers and technicians that did most of the hard work, we just directed them to put things back in the right place and made sure it all connected together properly."

"When will it be ready to go?" Jack asked her.

"We're going to do calibration and tuning this morning and hopefully a test jump with a drone around lunch time."

"Right, what can we do to help?" Mickey asked.

Chrissie indicated the computer terminals at the entrance to the Lever Room. "Each of those consoles has a calibration program on it. If you wouldn't mind overseeing the software, that would be a big help. I'm afraid it's a bit boring."

"Hey, I can do boring if it means Rose gets her life back," Mickey said with a lopsided smile.

Rose kissed him on the cheek. "Awh, thanks Mickey. I don't deserve friends like you."

They spent the next few hours watching progress bars show the percentages of tasks completed as the systems ran self diagnosis, tuning, voltage and current tests, tests under load, magnetic field shimming.

It was boring but essential. If Rose was going to trust her life to this equipment, she wanted to know it was all working properly. She glanced up at the status display on the wall which said 'Retro-closure in 10 hours, 37 minutes and 17 seconds'.

Malcolm and Roger had calculated the rate of 'hardening' of the walls of reality, with a safety margin built in that gave them the last moment at which it would be possible to use the Dimension Cannon. When the count reached zero, the cannon would stop working.

It was a sobering thought. Rose started another test running which said it had approximately ten minutes to complete. She took this opportunity to go and fetch three coffees from the machine on this floor and bring them back for her friends.

Pete came through from his office to see how things were going.

"If I close my eyes, I can see a status bar that says '67%'," Mickey said.

They all laughed and agreed that they could see the same, but kept at it until all the tests were completed. Malcolm and Roger appeared from the guest quarters, where they had caught up on their sleep.

"Good work people," Malcolm said. "It looks like we're ready to start some trials. We'll send the test drone through a few times and see what happens. Why don't you go and grab some lunch and we'll call you when we're ready?"

They were in the restaurant eating the 'special' of the day, which was chicken tikka masala, when Chrissie came to find them.

"Eat up guys. When you've finished, suit up. You're good to go."

**Retro-closure in 7 hours, 30 minutes and 47 seconds**

WHOP!

Three black uniformed people appeared in a dim and dusty Lever Room on the 'other' Earth. It didn't look good, the whole place was deserted and abandoned.

"I was afraid of this," Jack said. "The place has been left untouched since the 'Battle of Canary Wharf' six years ago."

"Let's see if we can find the power switch," Mickey suggested.

Rose was silent, staring at the lever where she had last seen the Doctor before her life had changed forever. There was a clunk as Mickey threw the lever on the isolator, and the room lights flickered to life.

"Okay, make sure your helmet cameras are recording. Malcolm needs all the data we can get," Rose said, pulling her eyes away.

"I'm going to find the field coil controls and see what state they're in," Jack announced.

He found the helium compressor that super cooled the coils and made them superconducting. He flicked the switch and the pump started squeaking. He would have to keep an eye on the temperature gauge to see if the coils would become cold enough to function.

Back in the Lever Room, Rose and Mickey were booting up the computers and attaching external hard drives to download all the data. They spent the half hour examining all of the equipment in the room, using their scanners and helmet cameras.

After half an hour, the jump buttons were recharged and they jumped back to their own universe.

The clock was still ticking.

Pete had called a briefing in the Executive Meeting Room so that Malcolm and Roger could explain their findings.

"It appears that the Lever Room has been left abandoned for six years, which has caused the superconductive field coils to 'warm up' and become ineffective. It will take weeks to refill them with helium and cool them down enough to become superconducting again," Malcolm said.

"Why don't we just jump back to a month after the breach closure and use the Lever Room then?" Jack said. "Once UNIT had closed down Torchwood One and replaced the windows that had been smashed by the flying Daleks and Cybermen, the Tower was sealed."

"Jack! Why didn't you say before?" Rose asked him.

"Sorry Sweetheart. I didn't know the equipment would be in such a bad state."

"Okay, so let's try again," Rose said. "Malcolm, is there anything we need to take with us to make this mission work?"

"We've identified some equipment that needs replacing, and some that needs adding to that will create a Dimension Cannon on that side. We'll put it in the holdalls for you to take with you," Roger said.

"Well let's get a move on then, we're runnin' outta time." Rose said; the urgency in her voice obvious.

"This meeting is adjourned," Pete said. "Everyone up to the Lever Room. We go as soon as those holdalls are ready."

**Retro-closure in 6 hours, 10 seconds**

WHOP!

Rose, Jack and Mickey jumped into a Lever Room that was pretty much as Rose remembered it on the worst day of her life.

"Now this is more like it!" Mickey said. "Let's get to work."

Jack went to the Plant Room and started the helium compressor. The guages showed that the equipment was in good shape and would operate as expected.

"Oh bugger!" Rose exclaimed as Jack came back.

"What's up, what's wrong?" Jack asked, anticipating a problem.

"It's those calibration tests we ran this mornin', we've gotta run 'em all over again on this lot."

Jack and Mickey groaned, but sat at the computers and started to run the diagnostic software. This would take a couple of hours, and then they would have to send the test drone to February 2014.

When that was all done, Jack and Mickey could jump back to the Lever Room and Rose could use this Dimension Cannon to send a message to the original project team, warning them that the Earth was going to disappear and that her other self should go a few minutes earlier.

"If I ever see a progress bar again after today, I'll scream," Jack said with a laugh, an hour later.

"I know, but when this works, none of this will have happened, so I think we can stand it for another hour or so."

"I hadn't thought about that Babe. What happens to us when you correct your timeline?" Mickey said.

"Well, I don't think it will cause a paradox or anythin' if I tell ya. You come back to this world Mickey, and start seein' one of the Doctors old companions, Martha Jones."

"What's she like?" Mickey asked.

"She's a smart, attractive doctor who works for UNIT."

"Result!" Mickey said with his lopsided smile.

"Jack, you are honorary uncle to my son."

**Retro-closure in 3 hours, 54 minutes and 32 seconds**

They had completed all of the calibration and tuning tests and were ready to try a test jump. Rose would send a drone to an empty office in February 2014 (Pete's World Calendar), where it would gather data for half an hour while it recharged and then return to its point of origin.

"Okay, here goes," she said as she remotely activated the Dimension Button.

It disappeared into the distance without moving, in that weird, transdimensional sort of way. There was nothing to do now but wait, and that was agonizing, because the clock was still ticking and Rose's window of opportunity for making the jump was getting smaller and smaller.

30 minutes passed, and they were looking to the empty space where the briefcase sized test drone had disappeared from. They all checked their watches. 30 minutes and 17 seconds, it was late. Rose looked nervously between Jack and Mickey, who had the same look of concern.

"Where is it?" she asked as it got to 31 minutes. "The digital auto timer was set to 30 minutes, it should have been back by now!"

"Let's check all the data, maybe someone found it and moved it," Jack suggested.

"What if they did? The auto return brings it back to its original time and place. That was a built in safety feature," Rose reminded them.

"I know! But that hasn't happened this time. We need data to find out what went wrong."

Rose knew Jack was right, but desperation was setting in. "What if I make the jump anyway? I could send my message and find the drone at the same time."

"Rose, listen to yourself. That briefcase could have jumped into the breach! Do you really want to go the same way as the Cybermen and the Daleks?" Mickey asked her.

"No, of course not. But I don't want to live without my husband or my son." Her voice was full of emotion. "I've only got just over three hours to send a message to the old project team before the walls of reality harden and close."

"What about if we start those pyramids again?" Mickey suggested.

Jack shook his head. "Firstly, the death and destruction caused by the earthquakes and eruptions would be unacceptable, and secondly, we don't know what is trying to come through. It could be worse than the Daleks."

"Oh yeah. Good point. So this really is a last ditch attempt then."

"Yes. So let's get to it and find out what went wrong," Jack said.

They went back to the computers and started pouring over the data to see what they had missed. There had to be a calibration error or mistuning somewhere that would account for the drone not coming back.

Then they heard it!

Quiet at first, as though it was at the end of a very long tunnel, then getting louder, stronger. It was the sound of the very fabric of time and space being bent into a doorway. The sound of the universe breathing. It was the unmistakable sound of…. a TARDIS!


	7. Chapter 7

Notes: Rose is despairing that time has run out and she'll never see her husband and son ever again. But maybe an old, and some new friends can help save the day. (This chapter has had several rewrites. I wanted to get the characterisations and 'Human social interaction' just right. I hope I have.)

**Chapter 7**

"So is it always that scary and dangerous," Rory asked as the Time Rotor pumped up and down.

"Oh no," the Doctor said. "It's usually much worse than that."

"Wha?"

Amy came over and bumped his shoulder with hers, grinning at him. "He's kiddin' you. Most of the time we have a laugh and run about a lot."

Rory didn't seem convinced. Amy tried another approach.

"Come on Rory, how often is it that you get to go to a romantic city like Venice and have a sword fight with a vampire?"

"Firstly, I don't find running for my life romantic. And secondly, I wasn't in a sword fight. A vampire with a sword was attacking me and I had a broom. Remember?"

She rolled her eyes. "Well if you're going to quibble over the details…."

"Quibble over the details?" he said incredulously. "Amy that man…." He looked across the control room and saw the Doctor pretending not to listen. He turned his back to him and whispered.

"_He's dangerous. He does things, and reacts to things without considering the effect on bystanders._" Rory didn't realise that a Time Lord could hear a whisper in a hurricane.

"_It isn't the Doctor who's dangerous,_" she whispered back. "_It's the situations he finds himself in. He doesn't turn his back on anyone who needs help._" She was trying to think of an example that he could relate to.

"Right. Okay, so let's say there's a mad gunman on the loose and a man gets shot and needs first aid to save his life. You, nurse Williams are the only person around. What would you do? Run for cover, or run to help and take your chances?"

"That's not fair Amy, this is different."

"How so? You have a skill and you use it, regardless of the risks to yourself. I know you do, that's why I love you."

The Doctor looked up from the console. She was good, but she was also wrong. He WAS dangerous, more dangerous than either of them could ever imagine. He had made, and would make, decisions that no one person should have to make.

He had an example of his own. A car crash, two cars burst into flames. Two people trapped, screaming at you to help them as they burn alive. Which one do you save before the petrol tank explodes?

He walked over to them and put his arms around their shoulders.

"So, that date didn't quite go as planned. Let me make it up to you. How about Niagara Falls, that's supposed to be romantic isn't it? We could go on October 24th 1901," he suggested.

"What's so romantic about that date?" Amy asked him.

"Well, nothing really. It's just that Annie Taylor went over the Falls in a barrel. She was a game girl that one."

"You see!" Rory said to her. "He's so alien that he thinks watching a woman trying to kill herself is romantic."

"Alright then, what about a journey on the Orient Express or a trip down the Nile?"

"He's been reading Agatha Christie," Rory said. "I bet he's expecting someone to get murdered."

The Doctor was about to protest, when the TARDIS lurched sideways and started to hum, whistle and beep in what could only be called excitement. He ran to the console to see what was happening.

"What's happened?" Amy asked.

"What's wrong?" Rory asked, looking decidedly nervous.

"The TARDIS has changed course." He inspected the display screen. "Mmmm, that's interesting. It seems the old girl has detected someone with residual artron energy."

"What's he on about?" Rory asked Amy.

"Isn't it obvious?" she replied.

"No."

"Oh."

"You two will have artron energy," he explained. "It's a kind of background radiation you get when you travel through the time vortex."

"See!" Amy said to Rory as if it was obvious.

"The question is, who is it? Why have you got so worked up Old Girl?" He gradually decreased the space-time throttle, activated the harmonic generator and activated the materialise/dematerialise function. The Time Rotor stopped pumping.

"Well, we've arrived," he told them as he headed for the door.

"Where are we?" Amy asked as he opened the door and stepped out.

"Oh no, not here," he said.

Amy and Rory stepped outside into a dusty, deserted, dimly lit room. It looked like at one time it was at the cutting edge of advanced technology, but had since fallen into disuse and been abandoned.

"What is this place Doctor?" Rory asked him.

The Doctor didn't answer, he had wandered over to a large lever that was set into the floor and was gently caressing the handle. It had been the last thing 'She' had touched before being taken from him.

"Doctor, are you alright?" Amy asked, standing beside him. She saw the melancholy look on his face and was concerned for him.

"What? Oh, yes. I'm alright. I'm always alright." He took out his sonic screwdriver and started waving it about, occasionally stopping to inspect the readout on the holographic display.

He got down on his hands and knees and looked across the floor. He then sonicked it and again looked at the results. He stood up and looked around the room.

"Well?" Amy asked.

"Someone has been here recently. Within the last hour, the computers have been used and are still warm," he informed them.

"And the arkon energy?" Rory asked.

"Artron," he corrected. "Gone, with whoever had it on them."

From inside the TARDIS, they heard the urgent beeping and whistling noises again. The light on top flashed once and they heard the Time Rotor 'pump' once.

"It sounds like your ship is getting impatient Doctor," Rory said.

"I don't know what's got into the Old Girl today."

They stepped into the TARDIS and the doors closed behind them as the Time Rotor pumped and she disappeared.

* * *

The doors of the TARDIS were facing away from the three Torchwood agents, towards the end of the Lever Room. They heard the door click as it opened and they could hear voices.

"So we are in the same place, but six years earlier?" a female with a Scottish accent asked.

"Yes, that's correct. For some reason the TARDIS is very insistent on coming here," an authoritative male voice said.

"Why, what's so special about this room?" another man's voice asked.

There was a pause, or was it hesitation?

"I lost a very dear friend in this room," the first man said quietly.

"Oh... Sorry," the Scottish lady said, her voice full of sympathy.

"Oh no, she's not dead. It's just that she's in a different universe and I'll never see her again."

Mickey and Jack were looking at Rose, who had a look of disbelief on her face.

"Your voice is…. different," she called out, after regaining her composure.

They heard gasps of breath from behind the TARDIS and hurried shuffling of feet. A head popped out at an angle from the side of the TARDIS. He had floppy hair, prominent eyebrow ridges and a large chin. They could see he was wearing a tweed jacket and a blue bowtie.

A pretty young redhead popped her head out at an angle under his and looked at them with large, round eyes. A young man casually wandered out from behind the TARDIS on the other side and froze in horror at the sight of three combat ready soldiers.

"Who are they?" the woman asked, casting a glance up at the floppy haired man.

"It can't be who I think it is, that's impossible," he replied.

"Yeah, you keep sayin' this is impossible, but this is the third time I've done it," Rose said, walking forward and removing her helmet. Her blonde hair fell down over her shoulders.

She let the helmet drop to the floor as she started to run. The floppy haired man scooped her up into a rib cracking embrace. Rose buried her face in his shoulder.

"Rose?" he whispered.

"Doctor!" she whispered back, her voice breaking with emotion.

They just stood there for minute after long minute, holding each other in silence. Jack and Mickey removed their helmets and came to stand next to them. Both men were smiling, happy for two friends who were once lost but now reunited.

"I think they know each other," the man whispered to the woman.

"Der!" the woman said to emphasise that he was stating the obvious.

The Doctor and Rose separated slightly; he had his hands on her shoulders. Rose wiped tears off her cheeks and put her hands around his waist.

"I've got your jacket wet," she said with a crying laugh.

"That's alright. It's tweed. It'll take more than a few tears to get through a tweed jacket."

"That's a new look for you," she said looking him up and down. "Jack said you'd regenerated."

"Yes. Do you like it? I think the bowtie is rather cool."

"Hmmm," she said uncertainly. "Your face is different," she said, hoping he would remember a previous conversation.

"Yessss," he said, knowing how he should respond. "Good different, or bad different?" He was smiling at her.

Rose gave him her best smile as she remembered that conversation. "Just different," she laughed. They stood there, just looking at each other before she slapped his shoulder.

"You never even said goodbye on that beach," she admonished him.

"I was a projection. The time ran out before I could tell you…. Well, you know."

"Not the first time, the second," she told him.

"What second time?" he asked with a frown. There hadn't been a second time on that beach. He had never seen her again until today. He was about to clarify this when he was interrupted.

"Er, Doctor. There are other people here you know," the young woman told him.

Rose assessed the woman and felt she reminded her of herself when she had first met the Doctor all those years ago. Young, naive and full of the spirit of adventure.

She was wearing a light blue vest top with a brown leather jacket. She wore a short black denim skirt, really short. 'How the hell does she run in a skirt that short'? Rose thought to herself.

At least she had sensible footwear, knee high boots with the tops turned down. She had a red scarf around her neck and Rose wondered if it was hiding the evidence of romance rather than just keeping warm.

"What? Yes! Of course there are. Jack! How are you?" The Doctor grabbed him into a hug and slapped his back. "And Ricky! Are you still defending 'Pete's World'?"

"Yeah," Mickey said with his lopsided smile. "And it's still Mickey."

"What have you done to your face?" Jack asked him.

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked, pulling at his cheeks and his hair.

"Let's just say 'foxy you ain't'," Jack said with a grin.

The young woman rolled her eyes and 'huffed' as she stepped forward. "When I said there were other people here, I meant us, you numpty. Hi, I'm Amy."

"Ah, Human social interaction. Sorry. Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, may I introduce Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness and Mickey Smith. They're old friends of mine."

Rory appeared the complete opposite to Amy. He was quiet and nervous. He did not look comfortable with travelling with the Doctor, just like Mickey was when he first went into the TARDIS. And why was he wearing a red sweatshirt with a picture of him and Amy in the shape of a heart.

Everyone said hello and shook hands, eyeing up and evaluating one another.

"It's not Tyler anymore Doctor," Rose said, holding up her left hand and flashing her wedding ring. "It's Smith."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What? You and Mickey?"

Rose grinned at him. "No, not me an' Mickey. Me an' John, y'know the Metacrisis Doctor from the Crucible?"

The Doctor's eyebrows went from raised to furrowed. "I can understand how you know about the Dalek Crucible, Jack probably told you. But there's no way you could have met him while you were stuck in 'Pete's World'?"

Rose hesitated as she tried to compose her thoughts.

"That's the reason we are here Doctor," her voice started to waver. "It's all gone wrong an' I'm runnin' out of time to fix it."

"Well then Rose Smith. If it's time you need, you'd better come aboard and tell me all about it."

Rose stroked the outside of the TARDIS before going in. She felt the familiar welcoming 'hum' from her old friend.

["Hello old thing. How have you been?"] she thought to the TARDIS.

She felt the TARDIS's pleasure at seeing her again. ["Hello my little cub, it is wonderful to see you again,"] she felt in her head.

["You've redecorated yourself, it seems lighter somehow."]

["I match my love's mood."]

"Rose Tyler! Are you talking telepathically?" the Doctor asked with a questioning look.

She grinned at him. ["Yep. And I told you it's Smith,"] she thought to him in Gallifreyan.

"Right, first things first. If time is so short, let's get into the vortex where time stands still." He set the controls and started the Time Rotor.

["Now then Mrs. Smith, I'll show you my timeline if you'll show me yours,"] he thought to her with a grin.

They stood facing one another and put their index and middle fingers on each other's temples. The rest of the passengers watched as they closed their eyes and just stood there in silence, like a couple of living statues.

Rose showed him everything from the worst day of her life, when she was trapped in the other universe. The grieving for a lost love and lost life, and then working for Torchwood to distract herself. That day on 'THAT' beach and how it had accentuated her feelings of loss.

Then there were the stars going out and the Dimension Cannon Project that brought her renewed hope. The correcting of Donna's timeline, and their eventual reunion. The creation of the Human Biological Metacrisis and his decision to strand them on Pete's World.

She showed him their house and how John did domestic. He saw her wedding and the birth of her son. He saw the arrival of 'alternate' Jack, the adventures they'd had working for Torchwood and the growth of their very own TARDIS.

"Er, what's going on?" Amy asked.

Jack gave her his perfect white toothed smile. "It's a kind of telepathy. They're catching up on old times."

The people watching them saw the Doctor's face soften into a warm, proud smile as he received the feelings of love for her husband and her son. Finally, she showed him the incident in the Cambodian pyramid and how everything had changed around her, and how she planned to fix it.

The Doctor in turn, showed Rose his version of the now altered timeline. She easily spotted the differences. He had been asking Donna about the mysterious blonde woman who had given her the message about the stars going out and the phrase Bad Wolf. While he was looking up at the sky and the 26 planets that were there, he had been shot by a Dalek that had come around the corner.

Jack had appeared and blasted the Dalek, before carrying him to the TARDIS where he performed his partial regeneration. When they had been taken to the Crucible, only Jack had stepped out with him before the TARDIS locked Donna inside.

Jack had sacrificed himself so that he could escape and rig a self destruct on the Z-Neutrino core. The Daleks teleported him away before he could pull the lever. The Doctor, Jack and Martha ended up in the vault in front of Davros, when the TARDIS appeared and the Metacrisis Doctor and Donna saved the day.

When he dropped everyone off back on Earth, Martha had agreed to look after the Metacrisis Doctor. All the time, Rose could sense that the Doctor was waiting for her to appear so that they could be reunited. But he was disappointed, and now both he and the Metacrisis Doctor were missing her.

Sadly, he had found out that the body of Sarah Jane had been found by her car, killed by a massive energy discharge through her body. It had all the hallmarks of a Dalek execution.

It had only been a few seconds, but they had managed to share year's worth of experiences. They opened their eyes and smiled at each other. The Doctor took her face in his hands and gently placed a kiss on her forehead.

"That plan of yours is very risky," the Doctor told her. "Do you remember what can happen when two of the same person occupy the same timeline?"

She did. He was referring to the time when she had gone back to see her own father before he died. That had been disastrous.

"Yeah, but what choice did I have? I had to do somethin'," she said.

"Well don't you worry yourself about it; I've got it all under control."

"What are you goin' to do?"

"Just sit back and watch the master at work," he said with a smile.

Amy had been thinking about something Rose had said when she first saw him. "Doctor?" she asked. "Why did she say you had a different face?"

"Ah! That's a long story, and a bit complicated. I'll explain it all later."

He went over to the console and started setting the coordinates. "Right, off we go then," he said.

The Time Rotor started pumping. "Do you remember that alley you jumped into at the bottom of those steps, when you were carrying that big gun?" He had gotten that image from their shared thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"Ever wondered why you ended up there, close to where I would land the TARDIS and not, say back at the Noble household?"

"I did actually, yeah."

"Well wonder no more." He materialised the TARDIS on that street, but kept the Time Rotor running for a quick getaway. He went around to the monitor and checked the readings.

"Ah-ha! Here they are. Torchwood are locking the Dimension Cannon on the TARDIS energy. Lock established and... time to go." He activated the controls with his old flourish and the TARDIS dematerialised just before Rose Tyler appeared.

"So it was you all along! You led me to that street so that I could find... well you."

"That's right. It was a fixed point in time," he told her.

"Can we have a 'time out' here while one of you explains what the hell's going on," Amy said.

Rose smiled at her; she was starting to like this woman. "Amelia isn't it?"

"Amy," she corrected her. "And are you the woman he gets all moody about when he's left to his own thoughts?"

Rose gave a single laugh. "Yeah, that'd be me. We had a bit of history before events conspired to separate us."

Rory came and stood awkwardly next to Amy. Rose could tell that he was hopelessly devoted to her. Amy looked at him and smiled, before turning back to Rose.

"And his face?" Amy asked.

"Ah, yes. That's a bit more complicated. You know he's a Time Lord?"

Amy nodded. "Yes, he does sort of use that to justify himself sometimes."

Rose laughed again, she definitely liked Amy. "Time Lords have the ability to regenerate; they can renew all the cells in their body if they are mortally wounded."

"So what did he used to look like then?"

Rose took out her phone and found a photo of John and showed it to Amy.

"Blimey! I think you got the better deal there Rose. He must have banged his face against the console when he crash landed in my garden," Amy laughed.

"He crash landed?" Rose asked.

Amy proceeded to tell her about her first encounter with the newly regenerated Doctor when she was six, and how she waited for him to return.

Jack and Mickey joined them and started to reminisce about some of their old adventures with Rose and the Doctor.

Rose went over to the Doctor and put her arm around his waist while he was standing at the console. He looked down at her and smiled, putting his arm around her shoulder.

"Amy says you crash landed."

"What? Oh, when I first met her. Yes, it was a particularly rough regeneration. I'd been poisoned by radiation; I very nearly didn't make it."

Rose had tears stinging her eyes. "And you were all alone with no one to help you?"

He rubbed her shoulder affectionately. "I was alright, I'm…."

"Don't you dare tell me that you're always alright, because I know different."

He chuckled at her and raised his eyebrows. "And yet here I am. And here you are, my brilliant Rose Tyler." She raised her eyebrows.

"Okay, I know, Smith. And here you are, living that fantastic life, day after day."

"Until it all went wrong," she said.


	8. Chapter 8

Notes: Rose gets help in fixing her time line from an old friend. She leaves a message for her husband, and performs an awesome magic trick.

**Chapter 8**

The TARDIS had left the war torn street of London after directing the focus of the Torchwood Dimension Cannon, and returned to the time vortex. Inside, the passengers were getting to know each other.

Although Rose had a good grasp of the theory of time travel and paradoxes, there was something that was puzzling her.

"Doctor, if you've corrected the timeline, how come I can still remember that it was broken?"

"Hah! Rose Tyl…. Smith. Still asking the right questions I see," he said with a smile. "You always were brilliant."

She blushed slightly and gave him a smile.

"Where and when are we at the moment?" he asked her, going into school master mode.

"In the vortex."

"Which is?"

Rose paused, her eyes taking on a slight golden hue within the brown. "It is everything and nothing. It is everywhere and nowhere. It exists, and at the same time, it does not. Time has no meaning here." Her voice had an 'otherworldly' echo to it.

The Doctor put his hand to her face and gently rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "Yes, very good. So that means we are outside of all time lines."

Rose shook her head, coming back into the room. "Er, right. So once I re-enter my timeline, I'll forget what has happened and everything returns to how it should be."

"Normally that's the case, but you've had two alterations. The first one was when you were in the pyramid, that caused a second alteration when the Daleks moved the Earth."

"We are now in a temporal causal loop. We have corrected the events leading up to you finding me again. However, when you get to the pyramid and touch the emerald, you'll end up back here again, and again, and again."

"That's like 'Groundhog Day'," Rory observed.

"Exactly. this could be your first time around, or it could be your millionth. there's no way to know. Amy, Rory and me will go on our merry way after this, but you'll keep coming back."

"So I was right! To fix this, I have to get a message to John and myself without causing a paradox," Rose said.

The Doctor smiled at her once again. "There you go again, my brilliant Rose."

"Is it just me?" Rory asked. "Or is anyone else having trouble keeping up with this?"

Everyone just looked at him.

"No," Amy said, looking at the others. "It makes perfect sense."

"Oh…. It's just me then."

Rose felt sorry for Rory. She got the impression that he had been drawn into the Doctors World of Weirdness by Amy, and had gone along with it for her sake. Much like Mickey had when she first met the Doctor and he'd been kidnapped by the Autons.

She went over to him and stroked his arm. "I know it all seems a bit strange, but imagine life is like a DVD without the controls. Normally the disk plays from the beginning, when you're born, and finishes when you die," she explained.

"The TARDIS is like the remote control. It can pause, fast forward, rewind and even bring up a menu to select which scene you want to visit."

The Doctor nodded his head and smiled at her. She was doing it again, being brilliant and making things understandable.

Rory smiled at her uncertainly. "Yeah, I get that. It's just that it's all so…. Alien."

Rose laughed with him. "Yeah, tell me about it!"

"So Mrs. Smith, we have to get a message to your husband about the harmonic resonance feedback surge."

She grinned and started to sing. "I'll send an SOS to Pete's World, I hope that someone gets my, message in a bottle. We need to get back to Dad's universe to send a letter."

"Alrighty then, hold tight everyone. It might get a bit rough as we cross the breach."

There was a shudder and change in the cadence of the Time Rotor as she passed through the breach into the alternate universe.

"There we are, safely back in your universe."

"Well, technically THAT was my universe, this is my Dad's, but I know what yer mean. You're not goin' to get stuck here are ya?" Rose asked him.

"No. Think about it. As soon as you pass on the message, the time line is corrected and we were never here."

"I've just remembered, the TARDIS had a problem with the energy the first time we were here, but our 'New Girl' runs just fine," Rose informed him.

"That's because she grew up here, using the locally available energy sources. I'm using a buffer to compensate for the different energy in this universe so that it doesn't drain the Old Girl."

He was studying the display screen. "Have you got an idea for the best time to pass on a message? You'll have to do it through an intermediary so that you don't create a paradox."

"I know," Rose said as though he was trying to teach her to suck eggs. "That lesson was well learned." She was talking about trying to save her father again, and he knew it.

She came over to the console and bumped him over with her hips.

"Here, let me," Rose said with a smile, stroking the console. She set the coordinates and operated the controls. The TARDIS then materialised under the trees in the garden of the Tyler Mansion.

"Well, aren't you full of surprises?" he said with a smile of admiration.

She gave him her tongue in teeth smile.

Amy and Rory stood with their mouths open, looking in wonder at this amazing woman who seemed to be able to give the Doctor a run for his money.

"Is she a Time Lord?" Rory asked Amy. "Are you a Time Lord?" he asked Rose.

Rose laughed. "No, there's only one Time Lord, and you're lookin' at 'im."

"But she did marry his hybrid twin brother," Jack told them.

"So what's your plan then?" The Doctor asked her.

"Well I did think about just postin' a letter to John, but I didn't want to leave it to chance. So I've decided to hand deliver it to a special friend."

"And will this friend be okay with you disappearing in front of them?"

"Oh yes. He's a bit of a magician, an' I've been waitin' to blow him away with a magic trick. This one will have 'im scrathin' his head for years."

"And the message?" he asked.

Rose opened the breast pocket of her uniform and took out two envelopes.

"I don't need this one anymore. It was a message to Chrissie, the Technical Support Specialist, to send me five minutes earlier." She handed him the second envelope.

He took it and looked at the Gallifreyan writing on the front. It was the infinity symbol, the same as on their wedding rings. He turned the envelope over, lifted out the piece of paper and unfolded it. There was more Gallifreyan script written on the paper.

"You have nice handwriting," he complimented her.

"I had a good teacher," she complimented back. "It must have been all those years working as a Scrutationary Archivist at the Bureau of Continual Observation."

His eyebrows raised in surprise. Rose gave a single laugh at the expression on his face.

"John told me all about your early life on Gallifrey." Her expression then went sombre. "About your wife…. and your family."

He cleared his throat. 'Swiftly moving on', would be the phrase to use. Rose realised that this was a fully fledged Time Lord, who didn't have a 'Donna' side to connect with.

She knew that he loved her, so much so that he had sacrificed his own happiness so that she could be happy in this universe with his twin. But he would never commit to a long term relationship with a short term life form. He'd already done that and got the sad face t-shirt.

"That's a good message," he said, changing the subject as though they had never spoken of his past life. "Short, direct and to the point."

"So John will understand and act on the information?"

"Absolutely. So, are you ready?"

"Absolutely," she said with a grin.

She went to Jack and hugged him. He kissed the top of her head as he rubbed her back.

"Well gorgeous, that's another adventure in the bag. It was good to see him again, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. I've missed him. Thanks for everything Jack."

"No problem Sweetheart. Now go get your family back."

She released the hug with Jack and turned to Amy. Although she had only just met her, Rose knew that she was a kindred spirit.

"It's good to know that he's got someone like you to keep him in line," she said smiling. She looked over to the Doctor and saw him raise an eyebrow in protest.

"It's been nice meeting an old friend of his. Getting him to open up about his past is like pulling teeth," Amy said.

Rose laughed. "Yeah I know. Three and a half years, and all I got were hints and whispers." They hugged and Rose looked her up and down.

"I love the outfit by the way. How do you get away with the short skirt? Every time I wore a mini, I was either runnin' for my life or dangling off a ladder where you could see my knickers," she laughed.

Amy laughed with her. "I know, but Rory likes to look at my legs," she confided.

"Amy!" Rory protested, embarrassed by his fiancé's admission.

"What? I was just telling the truth."

Rose suddenly remembered when 'duplicate Jack' appeared in their world. He had told them that he thought the Doctor had regenerated and was travelling with a policewoman who was wearing a too short uniform.

"Wait a minute, you're the policewoman in the short skirt."

Amy blushed. "Er, I'm not actually a policewoman. It was a kissogram outfit."

She leaned toward Rose. "That one's Rory's favourite," she said with a wink and cheeky grin.

"AMY!" Rory rolled his eyes in embarrassment.

Rose went over to him and held his hand. She wanted to give him the benefit of her experience with Mickey in the TARDIS.

"I know it all seems a bit strange and alien," she started.

"And dangerous," he added. "Don't forget dangerous."

"Oh dangerous is just the bit in between," she told him. "It can be dangerous stepping out the front door to go to work."

"I know, but it's as though he goes looking for trouble, or more like trouble comes looking for him."

"Yeah, no argument from me there. But give it a chance, the rewards are worth it. My old boyfriend Mickey ran straight out of the TARDIS and wouldn't go back in at first. But eventually he came around, and he had a great time."

Rory gave her a lopsided smile. "Okay, maybe I will. Our first date in Venice was a bit of a disaster, too many vampires," he said with a laugh. Rose laughed with him. "But the Doctor has offered to make it up to us with another try, and Amy seems keen to try."

"There ya go then," she said encouragingly. "That's the spirit."

They hugged and rubbed backs before Rose finally stood in front of the man that she loved. And that didn't feel strange, because she was married to him. She had given birth to his son, and okay, he had a different face now, but he was the same man, definitely and absolutely.

She hugged him around the neck, and he returned the hug around her chest.

"Thank you…. for everything. Now, and in the past."

"You're welcome…. Rose Tyler," he said deliberately. She pulled away slightly and grinned at him.

"I meant it you know; when I said I love you."

"I know," he said, holding her face and stroking her cheek with his thumb.

"And I realise now that it doesn't need saying, because you said it every time you held my hand. Every time you smiled at me. Every time you hugged me, and every time you saved my life. Every time, it said that you loved me right back."

She cupped his face in her hands and she kissed him on the lips, and kept on kissing. It turned into a full on snog, with Rose running her hands through his not so great, but still good hair, and he wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in close.

Jack stood there grinning, while Amy and Rory stood with mouths wide open. They had never seen him express his emotions like this before.

They broke from the kiss and Rose pressed her lips together before running her tongue around them.

"Mmmmm. Different lips, but the same great kisser inside. Howd'ya do that?" she asked him with a wicked grin.

The Doctor was looking quite pleased with himself as he straightened his bowtie and pulled his jacket sleeves.

"Superior…."

"Gallifreyan anatomy," Rose finished for him with a laugh. She kissed him again and put the letter back in her pocket.

"I'd better go before Jackie gets home with Tony. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time the walls of reality let us meet." She headed for the door.

"Bye Rose," they all called after her. She opened the door, took one last look, smiled, waved, and stepped outside.

She closed the door of the TARDIS and gently stroked the blue wood.

["Bye Old Girl. Look after him for me."]

["Goodbye my little cub. I'll keep taking him where he needs to be. Take good care of my daughter."]

Rose nodded and patted the wood before turning and heading across the lawn towards the mansion. She walked past the garage and made her way around to the front of the house. She walked up the steps and rang the bell.

She heard footsteps approaching and the large front door opened. A well groomed man in a sharp suit smiled when he saw her.

"Rose?! What a surprise. The security system didn't pick you up."

She kissed him on the cheek before entering the hallway. "Afternoon Alistair. Just practisin' my Special Operations Agent skills," she said teasingly.

"They're very good," he said, following her down the hallway. "I'm afraid your Mother isn't back from the school run yet."

"That's okay; it was you I wanted to see anyway."

"Me? Really?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah," she grinned. "I've got a magic trick that'll knock yer socks off."

"Really? Oh I can't wait. What is it?"

"Well, it's a disappearin' trick and a sort of mind readin' trick." She took the letter out of her pocket.

"When I come over later with John, I want you to give him this envelope."

"What's in there?" Alistair asked.

"It's a prediction about a mission we'll be goin' on and it'll freak him out," she told him.

"And the disappearing trick?"

"Come with me, you are gonna love this." She took his hand and led him through to the kitchen.

"Right, let's set the scene. First, we shut the doors." She closed the doors to the large kitchen so that they were now in a closed room. She went over to the cupboard and took out a packet of cornflakes.

"Now we make it difficult for me to leave without bein' detected." She sprinkled cornflakes over the floor in front of the doors, so that anyone trying to leave would crunch the dry flakes.

"So would you agree that if I tried to leave, you'd hear me?" she asked him with a big smile.

"Yes, I suppose so. You could try to climb out of the window, but I'd hear that as well."

"Okay, I want you to close your eyes and put your hand over them. No peeking now." Alistair did as she asked.

"Now put your hand out and I'll give you the envelope." Alistair held out his hand.

"Ready? One…. Two…. Thr…." The envelope dropped onto his hand.

Alistair stood there in silence with his hand over his eyes, listening intently for Rose to try and leave the room.

"Oh, not quite getting to three was a nice touch, very theatrical," he said. There was no reply.

"Rose?" Still no reply. He took his hand away and opened his eyes. He was alone in the room, and the cornflakes were undisturbed, as was the kitchen window.

"ROSE?" he called out. She had to still be in the kitchen then. He started a systematic search of all the cabinets and hiding places.

"What the hell?" he said out loud when he was certain that she was not in the kitchen. He reached under the sink for the dustpan and brush, and started sweeping up the dry flakes of corn. His mind trying to work out how she'd managed to fool him.


	9. Chapter 9

Notes: So after a slight detour along an alternate time line, the story gets back on track, and Torchwood tackle the pyramids.

**Chapter 9**

Jackie was in the living room, walking around cuddling EJ in her arms. She was talking to him and tickling him, which got a rewarding grin and chuckle. Tony had gone to his room to change out of his school uniform so that he could play on the floor with his nephew.

She had just switched on the TV when she heard the familiar noise of the TARDIS materializing within the room. They were making more and more journeys in that weird box lately, and she was worried that they were slipping back into that old life style.

The doors opened and Rose, John and Pete stepped out into the Living Room. EJ waggled his arms and legs when he saw his mother, and Jackie handed him over to her waiting arms.

"Where's my best little man then?" Rose cooed as she enveloped him in a gentle hug. Jackie noticed Rose looking at her and tried to put on a neutral expression.

"Are you alright Mum?" Rose asked her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, although she knew she wasn't. When would be the last time that she would hand EJ back, never to see any of them again?

Rose knew that 'I'm fine', meant that she wasn't.

"John, I'm just going to have a walk around the garden with Mum. Okay?"

"Sure sweetheart. See you in a bit." He'd picked up her concern for Jackie and knew she needed to have a chat.

Rose was sending him the gist of the conversation. Jackie was worried that they were going to 'run off' in the TARDIS like they used to before, but this time never to return.

She didn't realise that he'd stopped running away from his past. Rose had helped him with that, and Donna. He had come to terms with his history, and had come to like who he had become.

He was still 'The Doctor', but he was THE Dr. John Smith, Nobel Prize winner, inventor and scientific advisor to the government. He was husband of the amazing Rose Smith, and father of the adorable Eyeulf Smith.

He'd got a house, a proper house, with doors and things. And carpets! Him, living in a house. Now that…. that wasn't as terrifying as he had thought. And he knew it was because he had Rose.

She had been wrong about one thing, though. They didn't need to get a mortgage. One advantage of marrying a millionairess.

He was drawn from his mental musings by someone calling his name.

"Dr. Smith, your wife called around earlier and asked me to give you this envelope," Alistair said.

"Did she? She never mentioned it."

"I think its supposed to be a surprise, part of a magic trick."

"Thanks Alistair." He looked at the infinity symbol on the front, it was the symbol for their forever. He opened the envelope as Rose came back through the French windows with Jackie.

John unfolded the paper and read the message as Alistair went over to Rose.

"It was some Torchwood tech wasn't it?" he asked her.

"Wha?"

"You know, the vanishing trick. There was no way you could have left the kitchen without me hearing you. It was some sort of alien teleport, wasn't it? That's cheating you know."

She was about to ask him what he was on about, because she really didn't have a clue, when John spoke up.

"Ah-ah Alistair, you should know better than to ask a magician how a trick was done."

"Hmmph, I suppose so. But using alien tech isn't conjuring, it's cheating."

"Well indirectly it did have something to do with alien tech, but I can assure you that she had no alien tech for the trick."

"John?" Rose started to ask him what was going on, when he thought to her.

["Play along love, I'll explain later."]

"Okay, maybe. But what about the prediction on the paper? She said it would freak you out."

"Oh yes! Its done that alright. Pete, I need to use your office to send a message to the other teams."

"What's up John? Is there a problem?" Pete asked him.

"No, not a problem. I've just received new intelligence and we need to synchronise and coordinate our actions."

John, Rose and Pete went down the hallway to his home office and he closed the door. John handed the paper to Rose for her to read.

"What is that paper John?" Pete asked. He could see the circles and lines written on it.

"It's a message, written in Gallifreyan," he told him.

"And what is the message?" Pete enquired.

Rose looked up from the paper. "It says, 'the Big Bad Wolf is afraid of a harmonic resonance feedback loop'. This is my writing John. What's all that about then?"

"Alistair told me that you came here earlier today and gave him the envelope."

"But we were at Torchwood all morning, how could I have done that? And why wouldn't I remember writing and delivering it?"

"It gets better. You performed a magic trick and disappeared right in front of him as you handed over the envelope. I've got to admit, that was a stroke of genius, he can't work out how you did it."

"So that's what he was on about. What does the message mean?"

"Well, the last time I had a Bad Wolf message from you, Donna Noble had a 'time beetle' on her back, and things were going to hell in a handbasket."

"Ah, and when she corrected the time line, she disappeared and things changed around the original Donna. That's how I disappeared when I handed over the message."

John grinned at her proudly. "Brilliant! Which means that I understood the message and acted on it. Otherwise you wouldn't have disappeared."

"So what does the message mean?" Pete asked him, just about keeping up with the conversation.

"Bad Wolf is Rose, warning me that the oscillator in the pyramid has a feedback of energy which causes a change of our time line."

"So I used our TARDIS to come back here to warn you," Rose suggested.

"Possibly, yes. But we'll never know for certain. I only know about Donna's time line because you were in a different universe when you fixed it and were able to tell me about it."

"So what are you going to do John?" Pete asked.

"Well, there are three oscillators on a global nexus. It appears they are linked so that if one goes off line, energy from the other two feeds back into the crystal, causing an alteration of reality to correct the problem. We have to take the three crystals off line simultaneously to prevent a feedback loop."

He logged on to Pete's computer and started to send a message to Jack, Gwen, Jake and Julia.

* * *

Jake and Julia were settling in for their 12 hour transatlantic flight to Mexico City. They were studying the maps and plans of the Pyramid of the Sun, that had been downloaded to their tablet PC's when a priority message popped up on the screen. It was from John, and it contained instructions for a coordinated shutdown of the pyramid oscillators.

Of the three teams, they had the tightest schedule. They would be landing at 03:00 GMT, which would be 22:00 local time. This gave them two hours to get to the pyramid, find the crystal and then disconnect it.

The journey from the airport to Teotihuacán was around 45 minutes, which would leave them just over an hour to find the entrance to the pyramid and coordinate their actions with the others.

"Our bodies will be working on it being 3 o'clock in the morning, while the local time will be 10 o'clock at night," Julia said. "We'd better get some sleep so that we can function at our best."

She reclined the luxury seat and turned the overhead light off, pulling the eye mask down. Jake on the other hand, needed to unwind a little. He put his headphones on and started to watch a detective drama on his tablet.

Jake was startled awake when Julia gently shook his shoulder.

"Wakey wakey Jakey," she sang into his ear.

Jake rubbed his hand over his face and straightened up in his chair. Somehow it had reclined and his tablet was switched off.

"Wha?" he said, still in a fog of sleep.

"We'll be landing in about an hour. I thought you might want a cup of coffee and a freshen up in the restroom."

"Mmmm, yeah. That sounds like a good idea. I don't remember reclining the seat."

"You didn't. Its part of business class, the flight attendants recline your seats, switch off your gadgets and give you blankets."

Jake yawned. "Talk about bein' pampered."

The trolley came down the aisle and stopped by them. Jake bought them both a strong cup of coffee, and a small packet of shortbread biscuits.

"It's two o'clock in the morning for your body. Your blood sugar will be at it's lowest, these shortbreads will give you a boost."

Julia smiled at him as she took the coffee and biscuits. "Thanks partner."

They sat in silence for a while why they drank and ate, feeling a bit more human when they had finished.

"Mmm, that's better," Jake said as he picked up his tablet again. "Let's check the messages for any updates."

"Ah, here we are," Julia said. "Gillian West from the Embassy will be waiting for us. She'll unlock the case with our gear in it, give us our permits and documentation to explore the site, and give us the keys to the hire car that Torchwood has arranged."

Jake was also reading the mission updates. "Oh that's useful. The Embassy have asked the Museo Universitario del Chopo, to send an archeologist, Marcos Becerra to meet us at the pyramid site."

Having caught up on their messages, they took it in turns to go to the restroom. Julia went first, taking her backpack with her so that she could wash, brush her teeth and change into some fresh clothes. They didn't have the luxury of staying at a hotel like their other team mates.

When she emerged, she looked and felt 100% better than when she had gone in. She was wearing a black blouse, blue jeans and a pair of hiking boots.

Jake stood up and they passed in the aisle as he headed to do the same. By the time he was back in his seat, wearing a grey sweatshirt, black jeans and hiking boots, the seat belt warning light was illuminated. The pilot gave the standard announcement about arrival time, temperature and weather conditions in Mexico City.

After landing ten minutes early, they moved quickly through the Customs & Excise Department and met the Embassy official who was holding up a sign saying 'Simmonds & De Graff'.

They went through the concourse and out into the evening air, where Gillian took them to their Chrysler Jeep. Resting the briefcase on the back seat, she broke the seal and unlocked the case.

"Right, I'll leave you to it. There's a fresh seal here for when you've finished so that you can go back through customs. Mr. Becerra will meet you at the gates to the car park at Teotihuacan."

They thanked Gillian for her help and took the keys for the Jeep. Once alone, they opened the case and started sorting their equipment into their backpacks.

* * *

Jack and Gwen were in business class on the jet airship, heading for Cairo. It was a five hour flight and they were due to land at around 20:00 GMT, which was 21:00 local time.

The diplomatic briefcase with their specialist equipment was in the overhead compartment along with their hand luggage. Gwen had already told Jack off for flirting with the flight attendants.

"Just saying hello," he had told her with his boyish smile.

They were going over the mission profile on their tablet PC's when a priority message popped up on the screen. It was from John, and it contained instructions for a coordinated shutdown of the pyramid oscillators.

Fortunately, John's Time Lord brain was unaffected by his Metacrisis and he was able to calculate and adjust for the different time zones so that everyone on the mission would work as one unit.

"It looks like he's received some new intel' on the oscillators," Gwen said reading the update.

"Yeah. I wonder where he got that from?" Jack mused. "We'd better RSVP so that he knows we've got the information."

Once that was done they started prepping for the mission, going over maps of the area and plans of the Great Pyramid. Torchwood Communications Department were arranging official clearance and documentation that would allow them unrestricted access to the pyramid.

The trolley came down the aisle and they bought some sandwiches and drinks so that they could snack whilst planning contingencies for any foreseeable problems. This was Andy McNab's credo, 'Perfect Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance'. He had drilled it into the agents during their basic training and it had stuck.

Once they had exhausted all the scenarios that they could think of, they reclined their seats and settled in to watch the in-flight movie.  
The flight was uneventful, and they landed at Cairo International Airport without delays. They passed through the Customs and Excise Department and into the main concourse, looking for a man holding a sign saying 'Harkness and O'Toole'.

"Before you say anything Gwen," Jack said as he herded her towards the Embassy official. "I am definitely saying hello to him."

"Good evening. Welcome to Cairo. My name is Rex Patterson, Attaché from the British Embassy here in Cairo," the young man in a suit said.

"Well hello yourself, Rex," Jack said holding out his hand and giving him his winning smile.

Gwen cut in before Jack could really get going. "Gwen O'Toole, this is my field partner Jack Harkness. I believe you are taking us to the hotel?"

"Yes, that's right. It's the Le Passage Cairo, it's only two minutes down the road."

They went out into the comfortable night air and walked over to Rex's car. Jack put the case in the boot, their holdalls and briefcase went onto the back seat.

When everyone was settled, Rex leaned over and handed them the key for the briefcase. Jack broke the seal and unlocked the case. They would wait until they were in their rooms before sorting out the equipment.

Rex drove the short distance along the outside of the airport and along the one way system. They drove under the monorail track that shuttled people to and from the terminal, until they turned into the 'U' shaped drive that led to the entrance to the Le Passage Cairo Hotel and Casino.

A bellhop came to the car and took their case and holdalls to the reception. Jack carried the briefcase himself.

"Why don't you check in and I'll see you in the bar later," Rex said, looking at Jack with a questioning look.

"Are you staying here?" Gwen asked.

"No. I'm going to the Casino. I play a mean hand of poker."

"We'll see you in the bar then," Jack said giving him a wink.

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Jack. We're supposed to be working."

"Yeah, I know. But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We'll be in bed at a respectable hour and raring to go in the morning."

They made their way to the reception desk where a pleasant young lady greeted them.

"Hello…. Nadia," Jack said, reading her name off her badge. "What a beautiful name."

Gwen cut through his flirting. "Harkness and O'Toole. We have reservations."

"You might have reservations Gwen, but I have none when it comes to saying hello," he said with a wicked grin and wink at Nadia.

The young woman gave Jack a sexy laugh as she handed over the room key-cards.

"I'm sure you're going to enjoy your stay here Mr. Harkness," she said.

"I'd enjoy it more if you called me Jack."

Gwen pushed him towards the lift, following the bellhop with their bags. They had rooms on the second floor that were opposite each other in the hallway. In Jack's room they sorted their equipment from the suitcase into their individual holdalls. Gwen put her holdall in her room and they went down to the bar.

At 11 pm, Gwen went up to her room to get some sleep before their 4 am start. Jack went to the Casino with Rex, promising Gwen that he would not be too late and would be ready to go by 04:00. 

**04:00**

Knock, knock.

"Jack, are you ready?" Gwen asked as she gently tapped his door.

The door opened a little and Rex's face appeared in the gap, with his body wrapped in a hotel dressing gown.

"Oh hello Gwen." He opened the door to let her in. "Jack's just in the shower. He'll be dressed and ready to go in a couple of minutes. Would you like a coffee?" He poured a cup from the jug and handed it to her.

"Er, thanks." She went to the tray and put some milk in the cup.

Jack came out of the bathroom dressed in his RAF clothing and smiled at Gwen.

"Morning, partner. Are we ready to roll?"

"Yeah, just finish your coffee and we'll hit the road."

Jack swigged his coffee and picked up his holdall, as he moved over to Rex and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thanks for an entertaining evening Rex. I'll see you when we get back. Make yourself at home until you have to go to work."

He reached for Jacks hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Thanks, Jack. See you later."


	10. Chapter 10

Notes: There's trouble south of the border down Mexico way.

**Chapter 10**

Jake and Julia drove out of the airport and headed due north through the suburbs of Mexico City. When they got onto Highway 132D, México-pirámides, they started to make good time.

17 miles later they were on the outskirts of the city and moving into a more rural environment. After another 15 miles, they were approaching Teotihuacán on a tree lined road simply called Pirámides.

They were surprised at how close people lived to these ancient monuments, as they drove along. They could see small holdings and buildings, in amongst the stone ruins of the ancient city.

On the righthand side of the road they saw a turning and a large board telling them that they had arrived. There was a metallic blue SUV parked in front of the gates and a middle aged man got out as they pulled up.

Jake and Julia climbed out of the Jeep and approached. "Marcos Becerra? Mi nombre es Julia De Graff, esta es mi socio de campo Jake Simmonds." They shook hands.

"Your Spanish is good, but so is my English. I studied for my degree at York university."

"No kiddin'," Jake said with a grin.

"The Embassy tell me that someone has been interfering with our magnificent edifice," he said.

"That's right," Julia replied. "We're on a tight deadline to to investigate and correct any wrongdoing."

"Then let us get started, follow me." Marcos unlocked the gate and set off in the direction of the pyramid complex. They walked down a road that went past the large carpark and onto the Calzada de los Muertos. The large, 233 feet high Pyramid of the Sun loomed in front of them, brooding against the backdrop of the magnificent star field of the night sky.

"I've read that there is a tunnel that leads to a cave under the pyramid." Jake said, trying to get as much information as he could.

"Ah yes, that was found by some archeologists. The entrance is on the Avenue of the Dead," Marcos told them.

"Ugh. That's an ominous name for a road," Julia said.

"Yes, they had a very different view of death in those days."

They reached the entrance and Marcos took a torch out of his pocket. Jake and Julia took out their headlights and put them on. They also took out there scanners, ready to use when they entered the tunnel.

The tunnel was about 350 feet long and sloped gently downwards to end in a cave. It appeared to be a dead end.

"We believe this chamber was the tomb of an ancient ruler, but it was robbed out centuries ago," Marcos explained.

"Are there any other entrances or passageways?" Julia asked.

"Not that we've been able to find."

"That sounds like our cue," Jake said with a smile. They started to scan the chamber with their high tech scanners. After a few minutes they came together and compared the data.

"The walls seem to be solid and seamless," Julia said. "Are we directly under the apex of the pyramid?" she asked Marcos.

"Yes we are."

"Well, if the walls are solid, what about the ceiling?" Jake said looking up.

They started scanning the low roof of the chamber, and started moving toward the centre.

"I think you might be on to something," Julia said, reaching up and touching the stone. "Here, give me a boost up."

Jake spread his legs apart so that Julia could stand on his thighs, holding onto his head for support. She reached up and felt the stone, testing and pushing the stability of the structure.

"I think this might be on a cantilever," she said as she gave a big push.

She fell backwards off Jake's legs and Marcos caught her before she hit the floor. A stone slab in the ceiling pivoted to reveal an opening.

"Madre Dios," Marcos exclaimed.

"It looks like we've found you some more archaeology Marcos," Jake said with a laugh. "Give me a hand and we'll boost Julia up through the hole."

They grabbed Julia's legs and on a count of three, lifted her up into the darkness. They felt her weight reduce as she pulled herself up, and her legs disappeared into the hole in the ceiling.

"Are you okay up there?" Jake asked.

"Fine. Come on up." Her arm reached down for him.

Marcos linked his fingers together and formed a stirrup for him to stand on.

"Thanks man," he said as he put his foot in his hands and reached up into the hole.

"I guess this is where we leave you for now," he called down through the hole.

"No problem. I can come back tomorrow with a ladder and some colleagues. All I ask is that you do not disturb any archaeology," Marcos replied.

"You got it. We'll see you later."

They looked around their new surroundings and saw that they were in another chamber of similar dimensions. In the wall opposite was a doorway, so they made their way over and looked in. It was a narrow passage with stone steps to the right that went up and then turned right again around a corner.

They followed the steps up and around, up and around, up and on until after climbing about 150 feet, they came to another chamber that was filled with a blue ethereal light.

Julia gasped at the sight. "Oh God, that is SO beautiful."

"It looks like we've found what we were looking for. C'mon lass, let's get ready."

"Alpha One to Despatch. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over," they heard John say into their headsets.

Julia took off her backpack and crouched down at the base of the pedestal. She took out the inductance coil and fastened it around the pedestal. She held her scanner and reported in.

"Delta One to Despatch. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over."

They were waiting for Jack and Gwen to report in and then they would be ready to go.

"I hope they've made it okay," Julia said with concern.

"They'll be fine. Knowin' Jack, he's probably been distracted by some gorgeous hunk smilin' at him," Jake said with a grin.

And sure enough, a few minutes later, Jacks dulcet tones came over their headsets.

"Beta One to Despatch. Sorry for the delay. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over."

"Despatch to all teams, activate induction coils on my mark, in three…. two…. one…. mark."

Julia flicked the switch and the ethereal blue light dimmed and went out. She checked the readings and saw that the energy was being diverted from the crystal.

"Alpha One confirms power diverted from crystal," they heard John report.

"Delta One confirms power diverted. Over." Julia reported.

Jack also reported a successful 'switch off' of their ruby.

"Despatch to all teams remove crystals on my mark, in three…. two…. one…. mark."

Jake lifted the dead sapphire off the plinth and looked at it in the light of his headlamp. It was a bit of an anticlimax really, nothing happened. His headlamp shone through the blue crystal and sent shards of light bouncing around the chamber.

"Is that it then?" he asked. "Have we saved the world?"

Julia laughed. "It would appear so. Put that in your backpack and let's get out of here. We can hand that over to the authorities for return to the American Museum of Natural History in New York."

They made their way back down the steps, heading towards the underground chamber and the tunnel that would take them out into the fading light of the Mexican night.

"Julia. Don't you think it's odd that this crystal was just left in the middle of that pyramid with no guards or anything?" Jake said, thinking out loud.

"Well firstly, it was well hidden. Someone knew how to get into that pyramid, where the archaeologist didn't. And secondly, it's a tourist attraction. Heavies with guns and stuff would draw a lot of attention to what was going on."

"Yeah, I suppose so."

They dropped down into the cave and pushed the ceiling stone back into place. Marcos would be able to find it in the morning, although they thought it strange that he hadn't waited for them to come back.

"He must still be around because he has to lock the gates. He's probably gone to his car to phone someone about the discovery. He was kind of excited," Julia said.

"Yeah, that'll be it," Jake replied.

They walked along the tunnel and turned their headlamps off as they saw the entrance ahead of them. It was dark outside and their eyes were quite well adapted to the darkness.

Julia stepped out into a hail of bullets from automatic weapons and fell back into the entrance where Jake caught her.

"JULIA! Are you okay?" he asked urgently as he gently eased her to the floor.

"Aaagh, my arm. Damn! I think it's broken. Shit!"

Jake switched his headlamp back on and inspected her right upper arm. The sleeve of her black blouse was dark and wet from blood oozing out of a bullet wound. He took off his backpack and rummaged through to find the combat issue first aid kit.

He ripped the sleeve to expose the wound and took out the tourniquet, tightening it around her upper arm above the wound.

"Aaaagh!"

"Sorry Sweetheart." He found a spray can and sprayed the area with an antiseptic and anaesthetic. He then sorted through the kit and found what he was looking for, a tampon. He unwrapped it and inserted the sterile tampon into the hole in her upper arm.

Andy McNab had brought this idea with him from the SAS, where they used to use them as an absorbent plug. They had apparently saved many lives on the field of battle.

He took a field dressing out of its packet and placed it over the wound. The high tech material 'sucked' itself onto the wound, forming a tight, sterile dressing.

"Right, you okay?" he asked. Julia nodded. He took out a triangular bandage and made a sling which he fastened around her neck. When he had finished and was still close, she reached up with her left hand and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him into a long, chaste kiss.

"Thanks," she said simply. It was probably just the adrenalin and the emotion of nearly being killed. But every working day their lives depended on each other, and it was about time she said thank you.

Jake blushed. "Your welcome. And don't you dare tell Sarah you did that, she'd kill me," he grinned. Julia laughed and then winced at the pain it caused.

"Delta Two to Despatch. Condition red. We are under attack. Automatic weapons fire from an unknown number of assailants. Over."

"Roger that Delta Two. I am contacting the Mexican authorities. Over," Welsh Pete said back calmly. All agents knew that when you were on despatch, you had to keep your voice calm, even if inside you were screaming in panic.

"What is your current status? Over."

"Delta One is injured. One civilian missing, presumed dead. We are secure in a tunnel for now. Over."

Julia winced as she made herself more comfortable against the wall of the tunnel. Jake was kneeling with his back to the entrance, when he heard a voice in a thick Mexican accent.

"Do not move! You will hand over the crystal, NOW!"

Jake raised his hands and realised that the gunman wouldn't be able to see Julia fully. "I'm just treating my partner. She's been hit and is unconscious."

He winked at her and she smiled. She carefully removed her stun gun from its holster on her utility belt.

"I am not concerned with the health of your partner, I am concerned with the whereabouts of the crystal," the gunman said in a menacing tone.

"It's in the backpack." Jake pointed to the pack on the floor, thinking that the gunman would look where he pointed.

ZZAP!

Julia fired past Jake and hit the gunman square in the chest.

"Ooh, nice shootin' Tex," Jake said with a grin.

He ran to the downed gunman, grabbed his Kalashnikov and pulled him into the tunnel.

"There may be more of them out there. Are you up for a bit of flying?" he asked her.

"Yeah, pass me my tablet." She took the tablet PC and selected the 'spy-fly' app, whilst Jake took a small black ring case out of a side pocket of the backpack and flipped it open.

Sitting inside the case was something that looked like a bluebottle fly. It was the ultimate in nano technology, crammed full of high tech surveillance equipment. To date, it was one of Dr. Smith's most successful inventions for Torchwood Special Operations agents.

"Fly my beauty. Be free," Jake said as the fly took off and disappeared out of the tunnel.

From the aerial view, they could see four gunmen spread out and hiding behind low walls. Julia brought the fly down and around the nearest gunman.

"Right, time for some payback," Jake said as he took out his Glock and prepped it for firing, turning on the laser sight as he did so.

He walked up to the entrance and put his left hand around the corner. He wasn't a natural left handed shot, but McNab's training meant that all agents could shoot with either hand.

"Okay, start raising your aim," Julia told him.

Through the fly she could see the red dot crawl across the ground and up the low wall to the level of one of the gun men's heads.

"Stop! Now pan left." The dot moved across the top of the wall.

"FIRE!"

BLAM!

A single shot rang out in the Mexican night and Julia saw a splattering from the man's head as it disappeared behind the wall.

"One down, three to go," she said.

Jake looked back at her. "Maybe not." He turned back to the entrance and called out into the night.

"Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands on your heads," he shouted, his voice echoing over the site. There was no response.

"Try, 'Tiren sus armas y salgan con las manos en la cabeza'," Julia suggested. Jake called out again with prompting from his partner.

There was still no response.

"I have killed one of you, and I can see the three of you remaining. Surrender or you will suffer the same fate as your friend."

"He matado a uno de ustedes, y puedo ver que ustedes tres restantes. Rendirse o sufrirás la misma suerte que su amigo," Julia helped him to shout.

There was still no reply.

"Oh well, it was worth a try," he said. "Find me another target."

Julia directed the laser dot to another target and waited for the head to pop up for a look.

"FIRE!"

BLAM!

Jake called out into the night again. "And then there were two. Hands up who wants to be next." He glanced over at Julia who shook her head.

"Which one will I choose?" he called. "Eeny, meeny, miney, mo."

"Hold on Jake, they're throwing down their weapons and standing up. They have their hands on their heads."

"Result!" he said with a grin. In the distance they could hear the drone of a gunship approaching. "And the cavalry have arrived."


	11. Chapter 11

Notes: Jack and Gwen explore Khufu Pyramid and Jack's flirting fails to impress.

**Chapter 11**

They put their holdalls in the back of the Toyota Rava hire car and pulled out of the car park. Gwen started up her tablet PC and checked the messages. She glanced over at Jack briefly.

"Good night was it?" she asked him with a coy smile.

He flashed her his perfect smile. "Yeah, won £200 at Blackjack. How could I lose a game with the name Jack in it?"

"And afterwards?" she enquired, trying to tease the information out of him.

"Gwen O'Toole. I will have you know I am no 'kiss-and-tell'," he told her.

"Ah, no good in the sack then," she grinned.

That got him into gossip mode. "No, actually it was fantastic," he said with a grin.

She reached over and squeezed his arm. "That's so sweet. I'm glad you had a good time."

Jack drove down El-Orouba, heading west towards Cairo city centre. They turned onto a road simply called 6 October Bridge and then 15 May Bridge which crossed over the Nile. They were soon on the outskirts of the city driving along the Ring Road.

Gwen noticed that on their left was a teeming Metropolis, and on their right was reclaimed desert that had been turned into agricultural land. It wasn't until they turned onto the Cairo - Alexandria Desert Road, that they actually saw some desert.

Oh, and the amazing Pyramids of Giza.

They parked the car and kitted themselves with their utility belts and backpacks before walking over to find Naguib El Mallakh, Research Fellow at Cairo University, who was waiting for them outside the Robbers' Tunnel of Khufu Pyramid.

"Good morning, you must be the Torchwood agents," Naguib said. Jack and Gwen sensed that he wasn't too happy about them being there and exploring his magnificent edifice.

Jack switched on his winning smile. "Hi, I'm Jack Harkness, Deputy Director of Torchwood One, London. This is my field partner, Gwen O'Toole."

His charm offensive failed. "I presume you have authorisation and permits to explore the interior of the pyramid?" Naguib asked.

Jack kept his smile on. "Of course we do." He reached an envelope out of his great coat pocket and pulled out the paperwork.

Naguib sat down and started to scrutinise the paperwork in what seemed to be a deliberate attempt to delay their mission. Jack winked at Gwen and sat down next to him and put a friendly hand on Naguib's knee.

"Naguib. Now I understand all about paperwork. Like I said, I'm Deputy Director. But this paperwork was raised by your government, and as far as we're concerned its bona fide," Jack said slapping Nagiub's knee.

Naguib was getting decidedly uncomfortable with Jack's attention to his knee.

"It may be bona fide Mr. Harkness. However, I have to ensure that this site of antiquity is protected from improper use."

"I'm afraid it's a bit late for that Mr. El Mallakh. Some agency has already infiltrated this ancient monument and placed an oscillator somewhere inside that is destroying the Earth."

This started to rattle Naguib, who was very protective of this pyramid. Jack and Gwen could tell that the conversation had gone as far as it could.

"Y'know Naguib, some people are larks. Early risers, bright eyed and bushy tailed. And some people are Owls, better in the evenings and at night. I get the feeling that we've gotten you out of bed too early. What do you think Gwen?"

"Definitely an owl," she agreed.

"I'd get a bit more shut eye if I were you my friend." There was a quiet 'buzzing' sound and Naguib El Mallakh, Research Fellow at Cairo University, fell unconscious and Jack lay him down on the stone steps. He put his stun gun back in its holster.

They took out their headlamps, switched them on and started their scanners. Climbing into the tunnel, the scanner displayed the layout of the pyramid interior.

"Right, we go down here for 27 metres and turn left before reaching the Ascending Passage. The Doc says that the oscillator will be in the centre, which will be near the Queen's Chamber."

Crouching in the metre high tunnel, they set off, trying to make up some time.

"I've noticed that you always call John 'The Doc'," Gwen commented. "Why is that?"

Jack gave a laugh. "We go back a long way. I knew him before he split in two. I've never known him as John, he's always been 'The Doctor' to me."

"Doctor who?" she asked as they reached the left turn.

"Yeah, good question isn't it?" They carried on until they entered the Ascending Passage.

"Okay. 39 metres up here takes us to the Horizontal Passage which leads to the Queen's Chamber," Jack said.

There were wooden handrails on the metre wide walls, and wooden slats in the floor to give purchase for their boots. At the start of the Grand Gallery, they found the Horizontal Passage leading to the Queen's Chamber.

Again, this passage was a metre tall which was murder on their leg muscles. By the time they had reached the end of the Horizontal Passage and the level of the floor dropped, allowing them to stand up, their legs were burning and trembling.

The Queen's Chamber was exactly halfway between the north and south faces of the pyramid and measured just over five metres square. It had a pointed roof with an apex six metres above the floor. At the eastern end of the chamber there was a niche nearly five metres high.

"Well, here we are then," Gwen said as she started scanning the chamber.

"Yeah. There must be another chamber somewhere the Archaeologists don't know about."

They wandered around the chamber and both came to the Niche facing each other. they looked up from their displays and grinned at each other.

"It's got to be hasn't it?" Gwen said.

"Certainly looks that way," Jack grinned.

They turned their heads and looked into the Niche, which looked a bit like an open chimney with a square hole cut into it a metre off the floor. Gwen climbed up into the hole and crawled along, scanning as she went. Jack got down on his hands and knees and scanned around the opening.

"Anything?" Jack called to her.

"No. I'm coming out."

They stood looking at the 'chimney', contemplating their next move.

"Here, climb up on my shoulders and scan up there Gwen," he said stooping down so that she could put her bum on the back of his neck.

He held onto her legs and slowly stood up. Gwen giggled and steadied herself on the stonework.

"Now this reminds me of a time with Marie Antoinette on her hen night before she married Louis-Auguste," Jack said with a laugh. "It was hilarious under that voluminous skirt."

"Alpha One to Despatch. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over," they heard John say into their headsets.

Gwen started scanning the stones as she was listening to him.

"Did they have hen nights in those days?" she asked with a hint of scepticism.

"Well they didn't call them hen nights of course, but they used to have a maiden party before they tied the knot."

"Oh, hang on a tick. Brace yourself, I'm going to push the top stone in."

"Delta One to Despatch. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over," they heard Julia report.

There was a grinding sound as the top stone moved into the wall, followed by the one underneath, and the one under that. Eventually, the stones stopped moving and a set of stone steps went up into the ceiling.

Gwen climbed up onto the steps and crawled into the opening. She turned around, braced herself and held her hand down for Jack. He pulled himself up and they ascended the short steps into a hidden chamber that was suffused with a red light.

In the middle of the chamber, which would be over the apex of the roof below, was a pedestal with a blood red ruby on it. Jack took off his backpack and crouched down at the base of the pedestal. He took out the inductance coil and fastened it around the pedestal. He held his scanner and reported in.

"Beta One to Despatch. Sorry for the delay. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over."

"Despatch to all teams, activate induction coils on my mark, in three…. two…. one…. mark."

Jack flicked the switch and the blood red light dimmed and went out. He checked the readings and saw that the energy was being diverted from the crystal.

"Alpha One confirms power diverted from crystal," they heard John report.

"Delta One confirms power diverted. Over." Julia reported.

Jack checked the scanner and confirmed that the inductance coil was working.

"Beta One confirms power diverted. Over." Jack reported into his headset.

"Despatch to all teams remove crystals on my mark, in three…. two…. one…. mark."

Gwen lifted the dead ruby off the plinth, holding her breath as she did so. She let a long breath out slowly and admired the magnificent gemstone.

"Who'd have thought that something so beautiful could cause so much trouble?" Gwen said.

"Hah! You could say the same about me," Jack said with a laugh.

Gwen rolled her eyes and laughed with him. "Come on you, let's wrap this up and get out of here."

Jack put the ruby in his backpack, and they made their way to the narrow steps. They climbed down, dropped into the Queen's Chamber, and looked up at the Niche.

"I wonder how we get the stones back to their original positions?" Gwen asked.

"Well, who ever put the ruby in there must have put them back when they came out. Hmmm. If you pushed the top stone in to open it, maybe we could pull the bottom stone down," Jack theorised.

He jumped up and hung on the lowest block that formed the first step. Jerking his legs, he felt the stone start to tip. There was a sound of grinding stone as he let go and dropped back to the floor. The lower stone went back to its original position, and one by one the stones above slid forward.

"There we are then, good as new…. or should I say old."

The went back into the Horizontal Passage and then crouched their way along to the Grand Gallery. They stopped and stretched briefly, having the time now to look around and appreciate the skill of the ancient builders.

Looking up at the large Gallery, they heard Pete Davies on Despatch.

"Attention Alpha and Beta teams. Your status is now red. Repeat, your status is now red. Delta team has come under fire. Take preventative measures and use extreme caution."

"Beta One confirms message received and understood. Over," Jack said, looking over at Gwen. "I thought this was too easy."

"They must have someone watching the pyramids," Gwen said. "I wonder if Naguib was here to try and prevent us from getting the ruby?"

They looked at each other knowingly, then took out their weapons and readied them for firing.

After rubbing their legs they carried on again through the low ceilinged Ascending Passage, and then into the Robber's Tunnel. They could see early morning daylight at the end of the tunnel, which was a welcome sight after the brooding darkness of the ancient mausoleum.

Now it's fair to say that the brooding darkness of an ancient mausoleum was probably more welcoming than the sight that met their eyes when they emerged from the pyramid. There were multiple clicks from automatic weapons that were pointing right at them.

Along the road called Al Haram, there were a number of police cars with blue flashing lights, an ambulance, and officers on camels. They were the Tourism and Antiquities Police, and they were looking decidedly unfriendly.

They could see Naguib El Mallakh sitting on the side step of the ambulance, being checked over by paramedics. He was looking at them accusingly. Jack and Gwen looked at each other and raised their hands.

"What's all this about then?" Jack asked, smiling at the men wearing black uniforms and berets.

"You are under arrest on suspicion of assault, and interfering with an ancient monument," the sergeant said, as officers move around and relieved them of their weapons.

"Assault?" Gwen asked incredulously as they had their wrist handcuffed behind them.

The sergeant nodded towards the ambulance. "Mr. El Mallakh has made an accusation that you rendered him unconscious so as to enter the pyramid and interfere with the archaeology."

"But we showed him the authorisation and permits, issued by YOUR government on behalf of the United Nations," Jack stated.

"Then you have nothing to worry about. We will sort this out at the station."

"Beta One to Despatch. Beta team taken into police custody. Requesting diplomatic assistance. Over."

"Roger that Beta One, I'll get Director Tyler on to it immediately."

Jack and Gwen were led across the dusty ground to separate vehicles and put into the back seats, before being driven away to the police station in Cairo.

"Hello Jack," Rex said as he came into the interview room with the interviewing officer.

"Hi Rex. Good to see you again. How's Gwen, have you seen her?"

"She's fine. She's in a room across the corridor giving a statement. Lieutenant Khater is here to take your statement."

The man in the same black uniform, sat at the table with a folder of papers and took out a pen.

"This is just a formality Jack," Rex told him. "Your Director is very well connected."

"Yeah, it's handy being a personal friend of the President," Jack said with a grin. "Before we start Lieutenant, you'll need to put an armed guard on our equipment. There is something we have that someone is prepared to kill for. Our team in Mexico has already come under fire and taken casualties."

"Don't worry Jack, I'll go and see to it while you give your statement," Rex offered.

"Thanks Rex. Be careful, these people seem to be well connected as well." Rex nodded at him before leaving the room, and Jack started to give his statement.

Jack was getting to the part where Naguib El Mallakh was being obstructive, when the building was rocked by an explosion and the sound of gunfire. Jack and the Lieutenant stood immediately and looked at each other.

"GWEN!?" Jack shouted.

"JACK!?" he heard her call back.

He looked at Lieutenant Khater. "You need to take us to our equipment now or a lot of people are going to die today."

He could see the Lieutenant considering the options before nodding, drawing his sidearm and heading for the door. They met Gwen and an armed female officer coming out of a room opposite.

"Terrorists?" the female officer asked Khater.

"Aliens!" Jack said. "Which way?"

"This way," Khater said, leading them down the corridor.

At a corner, Khater quickly looked around the corner and dodged back. "One man with a machine gun," he whispered.

"Here, let me." Jack snatched Khater's pistol and moved to the corner. He dived into the corridor, firing as he flew through the air.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The gunman dropped back against the wall and slid to the ground, leaving a red smear down the wall.

Jack ran forward and picked up the SA80 assault rifle. He threw the pistol back to Khater before checking around the next corner. He beckoned them to follow him to the reception area where the bomb had detonated.

These people need first aid," Jack said to Khater as he looked at the scene of destruction. "Give Gwen a gun and we'll secure our gear."

The Lieutenant nodded at his female colleague, who handed her pistol to Gwen.

"The Evidence Locker is along that corridor and left at the junction," Khater told him. "Be careful. And please, get the bastards who did this."

Jack nodded and he and Gwen set off down the corridor to the junction at the end. As they looked around the corner, three gunmen came out of the Evidence Locker room, carrying their backpacks.

"FREEZE!" Gwen yelled at them.

TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!

Needless to say, they didn't freeze. Instead they shot at them.

Jack and Gwen returned fire and hit one of the attackers, who fell in the corridor. The other two leapt back into the Equipment Locker.

They ran down to the door where Gwen picked up an assault rifle. Police officers came running around the corner. Jack raised his hand to stop them. This was now a Torchwood operation and he was in command.

"Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up," Jack told them.

There was a burst of gunfire through the door.

"I'll take that as a no then," he said.

A bad-ass looking officer wearing body armour came down the corridor carrying a gas mask and a CSF grenade. He grinned at Jack and Gwen as he pulled the pin and threw it through the door.

There was another burst of gunfire while he put on the mask. Jack and Gwen backed away as they felt the gas stinging their eyes. The policeman pumped the shotgun he was holding and ran into the room.

TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!

BOOM! [pump] TAP-TAP! BOOM! [pump] BOOM!

The corridor went silent. Gas drifted out of the doorway and swirled around the ceiling. The bad-ass policeman loomed out of the fog of gas with his shotgun held over his shoulder. He peeled off his gas mask as he walked past.

"You might want to switch on the extractor fans before you go in there," he said with a gravelly voice as he walked away.


	12. Chapter 12

Notes: The Doctor and Rose complete their mission, but all is not well on the way back. (Warning: There are some disturbing events in this chapter.)

**Chapter 12**

"Alpha One to Despatch. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over," John reported to Peter Davies.

"Roger that Alpha One. Standby."

John was kneeling down at the base of the pedestal that was holding the glowing emerald. Rose was standing by the emerald ready to remove it when John declares it safe to do so.

"Delta One to Despatch. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over," John heard Julia report over the headset radio.

They only needed Jack and Gwen to be ready and they would be ready to go. Rose checked her watch.

"It's 05:04 and 22 seconds GMT," he told her. "12:04 and 23 seconds local time."

"Trust Jack to be late," she laughed.

"How do you know that it's not Gwen that's late? I know what it's like when you women 'haven't got a thing to wear', and have to go through your entire wardrobe," he said with a grin.

She playfully tapped him with her hiking boot. "I'll have you know that Gwen will have been up, showered and with her lippy on, while Jack would still be chatting up the Room Service."

John laughed. "Yeah, actually I could believe that."

A few minutes later, Jack's voice came over the headsets.

"Beta One to Despatch. Sorry for the delay. Inductance coil in position and ready to proceed. Over."

"Despatch to all teams, activate induction coils on my mark, in three…. two…. one…. mark."

John threw the switch and the green emerald light dimmed and went out. He checked the readings and saw that the lithium battery was drawing all of the energy from the crystal.

"Alpha One confirms power diverted from crystal," he reported.

Jack and Julia reported that their crystals were also 'off'.

"Despatch to all teams remove crystals on my mark, in three…. two…. one…. mark."

Rose took a deep breath and lifted the Prang Emerald off the pedestal, looking deep into the beautiful translucent crystal.

"Alpha Two to Despatch. Crystal recovered. Over," Rose reported and heard Jake and Gwen report in to Despatch.

"D'ya think that was it?" Rose asked. "Y'know, the thing that caused me to send you a warnin'?"

"There's no real way of telling, but everything seems okay so far."

"This emerald is really beautiful John," Rose said as she put it into the backpack.

"Mmmm. Makes you wonder why it hasn't been reported stolen, doesn't it?"

John disconnected the inductance coil and started packing his gear into his backpack. He stood up and gave Rose a quick kiss before heading over to the bamboo ladder.

"Up you go then," he prompted. Rose held onto the runners and started to climb up. John looked up with a boyish grin on his face, watching his wife's bum move seductively in those tight denim shorts.

When she had cleared the entrance, John started his assent and climbed out next to her. He moved over to the torch holder and pushed it upwards. The stone floor tilted back into position, closing the chamber underneath.

They moved back along the passageway to the entrance ramp.

"If you give me a boost up Love, I can get a grip and you can climb up me," John suggested.

Rose rested her back against the 45 degree slope and cupped her hands into a stirrup. John put his right foot in her hands and gently reached up to the entrance, getting a good grip on the stone.

"Okay, climb up."

She reached up and held onto the waist of his trousers as she got a grip with her boots on the smooth stone slope. She climbed out of the hole and grabbed his arm to help him up. They pushed the cantilevered stone back into position, closing the entrance.

Walking back along the rubble strewn terrace, they could see a number of other tourists that had come to view the impressive monument. Climbing down the bamboo ladder, they made their way back to the Suzuki Jeep.

As they were driving down the dirt road they heard Pete Davies on Despatch.

"Attention Alpha and Beta teams. Your status is now red. Repeat, your status is now red. Delta team has come under fire. Take preventative measures and use extreme caution."

"Alpha One confirms message received and understood. Over," John said as he gave Rose a worried look.

"Are Jake and Julia alright John?" she asked.

"Yeah, they would have told us if they had been killed. Pull over for a minute; we need to assess our situation."

Rose pulled over to the side of the track, where they were surrounded by dense jungle. John took out his tablet PC and studied the GPS map.

"There's a turning up ahead on the left that loops back to Koh Ker. After that, the road heads south for four miles with no turn offs, that would be an ideal place for an ambush."

"So what do you propose we do?" she said with a knowing smile.

"Well, if we want to find who's behind all this, I think we need to get ambushed," he answered with his own knowing smile.

Rose took out her Glock, took out the magazine, checked the ammunition and slapped it back into the grip. She pulled back the slide to put a round into the chamber. She glanced over and saw John giving her a disapproving look.

"What? If we're driving into an ambush, I want to be prepared."

John rolled his eyes and checked the charge on his stun gun. Rose checked her stun gun as well, after all the Glock was her last resort weapon.

"Right then, let's see if we can get back to Siem Reap without incident shall we."

Rose gave him a wicked grin and floored the accelerator. The wheels roared and threw up dirt and dust as the Jeep fishtailed its way down the track.

"Woo-hoo," John said as he grabbed the dashboard. As they went past the dirt track on the left, John saw a jeep parked under the trees.

As they sped down the dirt road, John checked the rear view mirror. Through the dust, he saw the jeep pull out from the side track and start to follow them.

Rose had spotted them as well. "How far along do you think they'll try and intercept us?" she asked him.

"I reckon two miles. What about you?"

"Yeah, I was gonna say half way along as well."

Sure enough, two miles along the track in the middle of the dense jungle, a car was pulled over on the side of the track was a jeep with the bonnet up and steam coming from the engine.

"What'ya reckon? A bottle of water poured on the engine block?" Rose asked.

"Makes it look real, doesn't it."

Rose slowed down slightly as they approached. Two men straightened up from leaning in the engine compartment and waved at them. She floored the accelerator and roared past them, giving them a friendly wave as they shot past.

In the mirror they saw the two men hurriedly reach into the back of the jeep and pull out two AK 47 assault rifles. She started to swerve the car to churn up the dust and made them a harder target to hit.

RAT-AT-AT-TAT! Plink! Plink!

They heard bullets hitting the back of their Suzuki before a tyre blew out. The evasive swerving became hard to control and they were heading for a tree. Rose managed to control the car and glanced off the tree and ploughed into the dense undergrowth.

John grabbed her hand and grinned at her. "This takes me back a bit. RUN!"

Run was a bit of an optimistic instruction. Climb, crawl or scrabble would have been a better choice. It was hot, humid and the light was dim from the canopy cover. They heard the pursuit vehicles screech to a halt, and men speaking Khmer.

"Reach into my backpack Love and grab my jungle knife."

Rose opened the pack and found the large bladed knife in its scabbard. John took the knife and started clearing a path through the undergrowth. The blade was made from an alien alloy that was razor sharp, and sliced through the vegetation like the proverbial hot knife through butter.

"Unfortunately, we're leaving a lovely trail for them to follow," Rose noticed. "Who do you think they are?"

"Probably local hired help, mercenaries or criminals I would think. We're going to have to split up. I'll go on ahead to draw them on, and you can circle around and 'zap' them from behind," John suggested.

"Okay. Stay safe." They shared a passionate kiss before she headed off at a right angle to their original course. She found a large tree with plenty of undergrowth around it where she could conceal herself.

She watched a snake slither along a branch in front of her as she heard their pursuers moving towards them. There were two groups of two, stalking John, who was deliberately making a lot of noise to entice them along.

["There are four of them in two groups,"] she thought to him.

["Okay. I'm going to sneak off to the side now so that they'll come to a dead end."]

He found a fallen, moss covered branch and carefully walked along it until he could get behind a tree. He took out his stun gun and readied himself for the encounter. He could hear one of the men climbing over the fallen branch.

["Move around the tree now John, you can 'zap' one climbing over the branch."]

John quickly stepped from behind the tree and chuckled as he stunned the man in the arse, before disappearing back into the bush.

["Hee hee. Nice sho…."]

John felt the whack to her head through their telepathic link.

["Rose? ROSE?!"] There was no connection. She was unconscious. 'Damn' he thought as he went to move towards her position. He quickly ducked back behind the tree as three other men came into view. He could hear another man shouting in Khmer.

"Come quick my friends. Look what I've found," he called out.

One of the three men picked up his unconscious friend and put him over his shoulder. They moved away from John, continually looking around with their AK 47's ready to fire.

"What have you found?" one of them asked.

"A valuable asset. Do you recognise her?" he said as they came upon Rose's unconscious form.

"This is the Vitex heiress from England. I saw her photo in a magazine. Forget the money that the Mad Monk paid us to watch the pyramid, her family will pay millions to get her back."

"Are you sure? What's she doing here?"

"She's some sort of secret agent."

"Not that secret if she get's her picture in a magazine."

"Trust me. I'm telling you it's her. Let's get her back to the jeep. We can take her back to the shack." They picked Rose up and carried her back the way they had come.

John tried to follow them as quietly as he could without losing sight of them. They dropped Rose and the unconscious man in the back of each jeep and drove off down the dirt road. He ran up onto the road and watched the plume of fine dirt drift into the jungle.

["ROSE!"] he shouted in his mind. Now what was he going to do?

He was beside himself with worry for his wife, and guilt for not being able to stop four armed men taking her. He took a deep calming breath and gathered his thoughts.

He activated his headset. "Alpha One to Despatch. Alpha Two has been taken. Request activation of emergency beacon. Over."

"Roger that Alpha One. Alpha Two beacon is now transmitting. Over," Welsh Pete told him.

"John, this is Pete. Where's Rose, what's happened," Director Tyler asked. It was the early hours of the morning in England, and yet Pete Tyler was there, waiting for news of the mission.

"Pete, we were ambushed on the way back from the pyramid by five assailants with automatic weapons. They've taken Rose for ransom. I'm going to go and get her back now."

"I'm calling the Embassy. We'll get you some back up."

"Thanks Pete, I'll talk to you later when Rose is safe."

He took out his smart phone and brought up the tracker app which showed a satellite view of the jungle and a dot that was labelled RS for Rose Smith. He started to run down the dirt road in the direction that the tracker indicated. What else could he do? The Suzuki Jeep was undrivable. He would try and flag down a passing tourist, if one ever came past.

He had run for about a mile in the humid heat and his chest was burning. He stopped and stooped over, gasping for breath. 'Damn this human body' he thought, 'where was the dual cardiac system when you needed it'?

He needed transport. And then it hit him, right between the eyes.

"Oh you idiot!" He thumped his forehead with the heel of his palm. He flicked through the phone apps and found the Emergency Call Protocol. Once activated he heard the familiar wheeze of their TARDIS as she slowly materialised on the dirt road.

Rose ascended through the fog of confusion, drawn by the dull ache on the left side of her head. She tried to rub it but found that she couldn't, due to the fact that her wrists were tied to the grubby metal frame of an even grubbier bed.

She could feel that her ankles were also tied to the bottom of said grubby bed which left her spread eagled and helpless. Her jaw was uncomfortable because of a knotted rope that had been tied in place that acted as an effective ball gag.

She glanced around the room and saw that it was some kind of shack. It had a table, some chairs, and a couple of cot beds, one of which she was tied to. The bed next to her contained a man that she presumed was the one John shot in the arse.

"Hah, she's awake!" one of her abductors said, rising from a chair and walking over to her. He was carrying a well thumbed magazine, which appeared to be the Cambodian version of 'Chat'. He showed her the cover and she groaned. There she was with John on the cover.

"You make us very rich, lady. You're family pay big bucks to get you back," he told her.

Another of the kidnappers came over with a digital camera and took her photo. The flash dazzled her eyes, and she thought how incongruous it was to see a high tech camera in a jungle shack.

The men jabbered away in Khmer, telling how he would upload the picture to that Torchwood Institute, with their demands for money. How much could they ask for? How much would they be willing to pay to get her back?

["John?"] she called out in her mind.

["ROSE! You're back. Oh, thank Rassilon. Are you alright?"] he responded immediately.

["Yeah. Just a bit of a bump on the head, and my jaw aches from havin' a knotted rope shoved in it."]

["Really? A knotted rope?"] he thought distractedly.

["Okay, hold on, I'm on my way. How many are there and what are their assets?"]

["It's a single room shack. Five targets in total. One unconscious from a shot in the arse, so four threats with AK 47's slung over their shoulders and ready to fire."]

She felt him chuckle at the 'shot in the arse'.

["Right. So I need to form a rescue plan. Keep your pecker up, I'll be there soon."]

["Don't be too long, will you,"] she thought at him, her anxiety levels rising.

One of the gang, she presumed the leader had come over to her and taken out his hunting knife. What was he going to do with that? There was a bit more jabbering in Khmer, and the man smiled.

"No. I no damage her. Just have some fun," he told the others. There was more jabbering. "Yeah, you can have go when I finished."

He lifted the bottom her black vest top, which only reached down to her navel, and started to slice upwards with the knife. The top sprang open to reveal her black bra. Rose was mumbling through the gag, her eyes wide in fear.

She felt the cold steel of the blade against her upper abdomen as the tip slid under the front of her bra. With a swift upward jerk, her bra also sprang open to reveal her naked chest. Her abductor had an evil grin on his face.

John had detected her raised anxiety. ["Rose, is everything alright?"]

["Er, I'm just going to 'zone out' for a while John. Promise me that you'll stay focussed and keep calm,"] she thought.

She felt the button of her shorts being undone and the zip being lowered. The man couldn't pull her shorts down because she was spread eagled. 'Thank God. They'll have to untie my legs, and then I'll show them', she thought to herself.

What he did next was unexpected and a little disturbing. His face went from an expression of frustration to lustful pleasure.

She felt the cold steel against her left thigh, as the tip of the blade slid up to her hip bone under her shorts. The blade twisted outward and jerked sideways, cutting the leg of her shorts from top to bottom.

["Rose! What's happening? I can feel something's wrong."]

["John, just promise me that you will stay calm."]

She felt the knife do the same to the right side of her shorts, and the remnants pulled from under her bottom.

["Rose! Tell me what's happening to you. What are they doing?"] He was starting to panic now; he could imagine what these low lifes would do with a beautiful young woman.

She flinched as the knife touched her lower abdomen, inching its way under her knickers. She whimpered and gasped as the tip snagged one or two of the sensitive hairs down there.

["Promise me,"] she pleaded. She could vacate the premises as it were for the duration of the unthinkable ordeal. She could reside in John's mind, safe in his protective love. But if he unleashed the Storm within, then where would she be?

The knife jerked up, and a hand pulled the torn knickers down. She was now fully exposed to the wants and desires of her assailant.

["They're going to rape me!"] He could feel the fear, horror and helplessness in that thought as she wept.

["I promise,"] John thought to her with a weight of resignation and guilt. ["But try and hold on Love, I'm almost there."]

She watched as the young man pulled off his t-shirt and kicked off his boots. He was thin and muscular, with tattoos on his chest. He undid his belt and started to unfasten his trousers, a bulge already showing in the front of them. Rose started to pull against the ropes holding her to the bed.

"Nnngh. Nnngh," she was saying as she thrashed her head from side to side.

The now naked young man straddled her on the bed and she let out a muffled scream. She was making it as difficult as she could for him, but he grabbed her chin and held it painfully hard. He leaned forward and spoke into her ear; she could smell curry spices and stale beer on his breath.

"You stop struggle or I hurt you. Okay?" he told her.

Rose squeezed her eyes shut; tears trickled down the sides of her face. She nodded her head and turned it away so that she didn't have to look. The man roughly kneaded her boobs, leaning forward to suck and bite.

She yelped in pain, and then heard a noise that gave her hope. It was the familiar warbling whistle of a sonic screwdriver outside the open window. Her head snapped around and she glared at the man hovering over her.

["Sorry Love. This is going to sting a bit,"] John thought at her.

["Oh God I love you!"] She thought back, crying in relief.

The man hovering over her looked to the side as a black object sailed through the window to land on the floor. The three men at the table leapt to their feet, weapons ready.

Rose could see it was a stun gun, stuck to an inductance coil with duct tape. There were wires attached were wires shouldn't have been, and it was a typical Doctor cobbled together contraption. And it was making an ever increasing whistling noise.

Rose pushed her head back against the grubby mattress and snapped it forward with as much speed and force that her neck muscles would allow. There was a satisfying, if not sickening crack as her forehead impacted the young, would be rapists cheek bone.

'Stitch that you bastard'! She thought with satisfaction.

The force of the blow knocked him back a little, and the look of shock and surprise turned to anger and rage, as he balled his fist and pulled his arm back ready to punch her in the face. 'This is going to hurt' she thought as she closed her eyes in anticipation.

KERZZAPP!

A million red hot needles pricked her body, causing all her muscles to contract at once in a wave of agony before the darkness thankfully came and took her to a place that was peaceful and numb.


	13. Chapter 13

Notes: Pete tries to keep on top of things at Torchwood as Rose tries to come to terms with what's happened.

**Chapter 13**

It was 06:00 GMT in Torchwood, and it was fair to say that it had been a bugger of a night. The Operations Room was buzzing with activity as people fed scraps of information to Despatch, who then kept everyone up to date with the state of play.

Pete 'Welsh' Davies was looking tired on Despatch, and he'd got another two hours to go before change of shift. Even then he doubted that he'd be able to sleep, not until he knew that everyone was safe.

Pete Tyler had come in at 04:30 just to be there as things happened. Unlike Welsh Pete, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until his daughter and son-in-law were safe and sound in the TARDIS.

The first part of the mission had gone without a hitch. All the crystals had been deactivated and recovered, and then it all went 'tits up', as McNab would say.

Julia and Jake had been the first to radio in a code red, when they came under fire. The Minister for Foreign Affairs had been very understanding about being woken up at that hour and had immediately contacted his Mexican counterpart. The military had been mobilized and were on their way in an attack airship.

Then they had a call from Jack and Gwen to say they had been arrested and taken into custody, and felt there may be a diplomatic incident brewing. Pete had called the President on her private number, the early hour of the call being forgiven when he mentioned it was Jack Harkness. 'Thank God for his flirting', Pete thought to himself with a chuckle.

Then the worst call of the night came in from John. Rose had been kidnapped and John was going to rescue her. Those were all the details he had, so his imagination started filling in the missing information with ever more horrifying scenarios.

Then reports came in from news sources that a police station in Cairo had been subjected to a terrorist bomb attack. It didn't take a genius to work out that Jack and Gwen would be in the middle of it, and they had no contact with them.

Pete took another swig of strong coffee and shuddered. 'This stuff will be the death of me', he thought. He took his mobile out of his pocket and looked at it, contemplating whether to call Jackie. He put the phone back in his pocket, she would only fret.

He knew he would get it in the neck when she found out that he hadn't told her, but he'd felt the sharp edge of her tongue before and survived. He only did it because he loved her, and because he didn't want her to worry about things she had no control over.

"Pete! We've had an update from Mexico," Welsh Pete announced. "One gunman stunned, two dead and two surrendered to Jake and Julia. Julia has a gunshot wound to her right upper arm with a fractured humerus."

"Ye Gods. A bullet in the arm and they still manage to overpower an aggressive force. What a team!"

"She's been Medevac'd to American British Cowdray Hospital in Mexico City for emergency surgery."

"Thanks Welsh. Can you pass that message down the line, I know a lot of people are worried about them," Pete said.

A cheer went up in the Standby Room as the Watch read the update on the media screen. One down, and only two left to go. Welsh Pete continued to monitor communications and news feeds for any scrap of information.

Several minutes later, Pete's mobile rang and he took it out of his pocket. The display said 'Rose'. He answered the call and put the phone to his ear.

"Rose?" he asked hesitantly. He could hear the intake of breath of someone steeling themselves to speak when they were overcome with emotion.

"Dad?" He could hear the tears in her voice.

"Rose, are you alright? Is John with you?" He asked hurriedly, his voice full of concern.

"Dad," she cried. "I'm alright, we're both alright. Is EJ okay?"

Pete wiped the tears from his eyes. "Yes Love, he's fine. He's been as good as gold for us." He could hear Rose crying at that news.

"Rose, what's the matter? You sound very upset."

John's voice came on the phone. "Pete, we've had a bit of an ordeal. Rose was…. attacked. She's alright, but it's shaken her up a bit. She just needs some time to recover."

"Okay John. You're sure she's not injured."

"No, she's uninjured. We'll see you soon."

"Okay. Oh, can you tell her that Jake and Julia are out of danger. Julia took a bullet to the arm and is on her way to the hospital to have it fixed."

"Oh that's a relief. We were worried when we heard the report. I'll let her know, speak to you later."

Pete ended the call and looked over at Welsh Pete who was looking right back at him.

"They're safe," is all he said. Welsh breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to his console. There was another cheer from the Standby Room.

"Beta One to Despatch. Over." Jack's voice came over the speaker.

"Go ahead Beta One. Over."

"Threat neutralized, Beta Team are okay. Repeat, Beta Team are okay. Over."

"Roger that Beta One. Good news. Over."

There was another cheer from the Standby Room as Pete slumped into a swivel chair which slowly rotated. He saw Welsh Pete grinning at him with his hand held up. As he rotated past he gave him a high five and took out his mobile phone. It was time to tell Jackie and get an ear bending.

* * *

["Rose?"]

"Mmmmm," she murmured. She was SO comfortable, she didn't want to be disturbed.

"Rose?" That was John calling her, and he sounded concerned.

She started to climb the hill of consciousness towards the land of wakefulness, and her memories started to come back. One or two of them cautiously at first, and then a flood of everything that had happened to her.

Her eyes shot open and she saw the worried face of her husband as he sat on the side of the medi-bed. She sat up suddenly and grabbed him into a hug as she started to cry.

He wrapped his arms around her and just held her, gently stroking her hair. He sent waves of love and reassurance into her mind as they sat and hugged.

"I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear.

"Don't be. It didn't hurt much, and it saved me," she said quietly.

"No, I meant for not being there to protect you from those…."

"John, you rescued me!" she said as she came out of the hug to look at his face, stroking it gently. "I know what would have happened if you hadn't been there for me."

"Did he…?"

"No. Nearly, but no. You were coitus interruptus so to speak," she said, trying to laugh through the tears.

John had tears trickling down his cheeks. "Oh, thank Rassilon. When I saw him lying on top of you like that, both of you naked…."

"Don't," she said and pulled herself back into a hug.

He could feel her distress. This brave, confident and resourceful woman had been left vulnerable, helpless and unable to defend herself. They both knew that she had been seconds away from being…. violated, and although physically the act had not occurred, mentally it already had.

"We'd better report in," John said quietly into her hair. "They'll be worried sick."

"I'll phone Dad."

"Are you sure? I can do it if you want."

"No, it's alright. I want to speak to him."

John reached for her phone that was on the bedside cabinet and handed it to her. She found her Dad's number and pressed the dial option.

"Rose?" she heard him say. Oh God, he sounded so worried and weary. Her Dad just wanted to protect her, and she just wanted to hug him.

"Dad?" She said with a quivering voice.

"Rose, are you alright? Is John with you?" He asked hurriedly, his voice full of concern.

She couldn't hold it together any longer. "Dad," she cried. "I'm alright, we're both alright. Is EJ okay?" She desperately wanted to hold her son. John squeezed her hand in support and she nodded her thanks at his support.

She could hear the tears in his breaking voice. "Yes Love, he's fine. He's been as good as gold for us." 'Oh bless him' she thought, as a sob escaped from her lips.

"Rose, what's the matter? You sound very upset." her Dad asked.

John saw that Rose was in no condition to answer that question just yet so he gently took the phone from her.

"Pete, we've had a bit of an ordeal. Rose was…. attacked. She's alright, but it's shaken her up a bit. She just needs some time to recover."

Rose watched as John listened to her Dad on the phone.

"No, she's uninjured. We'll see you soon."

"Oh that's a relief. We were worried when we heard the report. I'll let her know, speak to you later."

He ended the call and put the phone back on the cabinet.

"What's a relief?" she asked him.

"Jake and Julia are okay. Julia was injured in a firefight and is in hospital being fixed up." He saw the worry on her face. "She's going to be alright."

She reached her arms out for him and they hugged again. John could feel the turmoil in her mind and knew that she needed some help to sort out her thoughts and emotions.

["Rose. We need to talk about what happened."]

["What's to say? I let myself be taken hostage. I should have heard him coming and taken him out."]

["Well, if you follow that to its logical conclusion, then it's my fault. You were focussed on helping me stun one of them that you didn't hear the one coming behind you."]

["That still doesn't excuse the fact that I should have known he was there. I'm a trained agent John, I'm better than that."]

["And he was a local who probably grew up in the jungle. No amount of training will account for a natural ability to move through the undergrowth unnoticed."]

Rose stopped and thought about this. John was talking sense. If her attacked didn't want to be seen or heard, then he wouldn't be seen or heard. John mentally breathed a sigh of relief as she started to realise that she wasn't to blame.

["But then, in the shack. I was no better than a pathetic heroine in a silent film, tied to a bed at the mercy of the evil villain."]

["The nanogenes have repaired the damage now, but I saw the rope burns, bruises and blood on your wrist and ankles where you struggled to get free. That wasn't pathetic."]

["But towards the end, he said he'd hurt me if I struggled... so I stopped struggling…. I surrendered."]

He could feel her torment, her guilt, her shame.

["And I know why you did that, or should I say for whom."]

Rose blinked back tears as he continued. ["You wanted to survive for our son, so that he would have a mother. To willingly submit to that ordeal for the sake of our son, that is one of the bravest things I have ever seen. That was an act of courage, not of weakness."]

He held her face with one hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb.

["And that head-butt!"] he laughed. ["If that was surrendering, God help anyone if you turn and fight,"] he joked, trying to lighten her mood.

She gave a single laugh. "Yeah, it was pretty good wasn't it?"

"That's more like the Rose I know and love," he said reassuringly.

"Why don't you go and have a shower and get dressed? I'll put the kettle on, I think a nice cup of tea is in order."

A shower sounded like a great idea. She could do with scrubbing the dirt, sweat and smell of her attacker off her skin. She wrapped the sheet around her, hopped of the medi-bed and kissed him on the cheek.

"I'll see you in the kitchen," she said and waggled out of the Medi-Bay.

John couldn't fail to notice that she had wrapped herself in the sheet. Normally they were very comfortable being naked around one another. However, after what she had just been through it was hardly surprising that she was a bit self conscious of her nudity.

He left the Medi-Bay and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. He reached their favourite mugs out of the cupboard and found a packet of biscuits. By the time he had made the tea, Rose had returned from the bedroom dressed in jeans, trainers and a baggy grey sweatshirt that hung off one shoulder, showing the strap of her red bra.

She picked up her mug and kissed him on the cheek before sitting on one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

"Mmmm, you were right, that's just what I needed," she said as she took a sip. She gave him her tongue in teeth smile. "You could say that it's just what the Doctor ordered."

He laughed with her and gave her a wink. She took a biscuit out of the packet and dunked it in her tea before taking a bite.

"John?" she said hesitantly. "What happened to those men in the shack?"

John spluttered his tea. "Ah, them, right, yes…." he hesitated.

"John, what have you done to them?" she asked. She had seen the Storm brewing in him, and was worried that he may have done something that he would later regret.

He sensed her concern and reassured her. "Er, nothing bad Sweetheart, honestly. It's just that…. they're on board…. in the dungeon."

"Wha'? We have a dungeon?" she asked incredulously.

"We do now," he replied raising his eyebrows. "The young girl was so outraged that she immediately produced five medieval stone dungeons to put them in. They're very authentic, iron bars, wooden benches, and she's even put straw on the floor. I thought that was a nice touch."

"You're not goin' to torture them or anythin' are you?"

John chuckled. "Now there's a thought. I mean, it's not like they don't deserve it. But no, I'm going to question them about the person who hired them. We need to find out who's behind this and shut down their operation."

She finished her tea and a second biscuit. "Right then, let's get to it."

"What? You want to see them?" John asked.

"Too right I do. I want them to see who they were messin' with," she said.

John couldn't help but smile at this impressive woman. Wanting to confront the men who had attacked her was a good sign that she would be okay. He could feel that this was important for her confidence and self esteem.

"Well if you're sure then," he said holding out his hand.

She gave him a winning smile. "I'm Pete and Jackie Tyler's daughter... I'm sure."

They left the kitchen/dining room and turned right, away from the control room. They passed the arched door of their bedroom, took the first left, second right, and third on the left. They went straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, and came to an old oak door with a metal ring for a handle, and metal studs embedded in it.

Rose had to smile at the attention to detail that the TARDIS had put into creating a dungeon. She had to stifle a giggle when the door opened with an elongated, cinematic creek. All it needed was the Wilhelm scream sound effect, so favoured of sound engineers and she would have collapsed in fits of laughter.

Inside though, there was nothing to laugh at. There were five cells in a semicircle, the entrance of each facing the centre of the room. Each cell had a semicircular entrance that had metal bars from floor to ceiling. In each cell was a wooden bench attached to the wall, and a Cambodian gunman.

Rose could see in the first cell was the man who had attacked her. He was sitting on the bench with his knees pulled up to his chest. He was still naked and she could see the bruise on his chest and his cheek.

"Where are we? What is this place?" he asked in a defiant tone, the TARDIS translating from Khmer to English.

John looked at Rose with a smile and looked around the room before looking at the naked man.

"It's a dungeon! I'd have thought that was obvious."

"And what are we doing here? We know you are secret agents, but where are the police?" he asked, less defiant and more nervous that time.

John held up his fingers. "One, you are hear to answer my questions and two, the police are waiting for you at the station when I've finished with you."

"Why did you try to rape me?" Rose asked unexpectedly out of the blue.

"I... I wasn't going to rape you; we were just having a bit of fun."

The dungeon shook as if they were experiencing an earthquake, the sound of rocks grinding against each other could be heard. The lights flickered and dimmed. John looked up to the ceiling.

"Now now young lady, there's no need for that. I'm sure it was a mistake and that he wants to tell the truth. Because if he doesn't, I will go and get it myself." John looked down from the ceiling and right into his captive with black, ancient eyes.

The young man shrank back against the wall in terror.

"WHAT-IS-YOUR-NAME?" John asked in a voice that could not be resisted.

"Rose Mari…." Rose shook her head to clear it of his demand. She looked at him in awe. All the captives answered at the same time.

"Lim Nhek," Rose's attacker told them.

"WHO-HIRED-YOU-TO-WATCH-THE-PYRAMID?"

"A monk said that thieves would come to the pyramid to steal something important," Lim said in a semi-hypnotic state.

"He said 'set a thief to catch a thief', and paid us well for our time. He gave me this." Lim showed them the triangular emerald around his neck. "It was to show us when you stole the item and where you went with it."

"WHERE-IS-THIS-MONK-NOW?"

"We don't know."

John looked at Rose hesitantly before asking the next question.

"WHY-DID-YOU-TRY-TO-RAPE-MY-WIFE?"

"She is beautiful. I had seen her in the magazine and fantasized about her. She is a secret agent, she must do that sort of thing all the time, I have seen spy films. And she is a thief, the monk said thieves might come."

"So I was fair game then?" Rose said quietly, anger in her voice.

Lim didn't reply. He had a look of shameful regret on his face as he hid his face against his knees.

"Have you got anymore questions John?" she asked as her eyes glistened with tears.

John shook his head and wrapped his arms around her. "No, Love."

"I don't want them in our TARDIS anymore."


	14. Chapter 14

Notes: Rose and the Doctor return home and try to return to their normal routine, but find it's not that easy.

**Chapter 14**

Jackie was up and about, busying herself with her morning routine. She had warmed a bottle of milk for her Grandson and was now sitting in the Living Room with EJ guzzling away happily, while she watched the news. Soon she would have to wake up her son Tony and get him ready for school.

There was a report of a terrorist attack on a police station in Cairo. Hadn't that been where Pete had said Jack and Gwen were going? That line of thought was interrupted by her mobile phone ringing.

Jackie looked down at EJ and saw that he was quite happy holding his own bottle, smiling at his Grandma with his eyes. She smiled back at him and reached her phone out of her pocket.

"Jacks, it's me. Rose has phoned, they're okay," Pete said.

"Oh thank God," she said with relief. "Did everythin' go alright?"

There was a pause as he decided what to tell her.

"She was upset; John said that they had been through an ordeal."

"What happened?" she asked urgently. "What kind of ordeal?"

"I don't know. He said she was uninjured, just shaken up a bit."

"What? And you didn't think to ask I suppose?"

"Jacks."

"What's that daft alien gotten 'em into this time?"

"Jacks! They were on a mission."

"Mission my arse. You didn't know 'em before, in the other world. Always goin' off an' lookin' for trouble they were."

"Jacks, calm down! It wasn't just them."

"Eh?" That stopped her rant.

Pete took a deep breath before continuing. "Julia was shot. She's in surgery being fixed up. Apparently it's not life threatening, I'm waiting for Jake to report in. Jack and Gwen were arrested and then the police station was bombed. They're okay as well, but it's been a sod of a night Love."

"Oh. Sorry Love. I'm just worried about 'em when they go off on these missions."

"I know. You're her Mum. It's your job to worry." He tried to allay her worries and fears. "John didn't sound too concerned about Rose. It sounded like she'd had a bit of a shock or a near miss. We'll know more when they get back."

"You'll let me know as soon as they get back?"

"Yeah, of course. But the way Rose was asking about EJ, I think you'll see them before I do."

"Okay Pete. I'll talk to you later then."

"Yeah, see you later. Oh, and Jacks, I love you."

"Of course y'do yer big dope. See ya later."

She ended the call and looked down at EJ, taking control of the bottle once more.

"What are we goin' to do with your Mummy and Daddy eh?" she cooed at him. He studied her face as though trying to work out a response to her question.

"I hope you don't inherit their trouble magnet, or you'll be sendin' me grey before me time."

As if in answer, there was a 'phutt phutt' noise and an accompanying odour which told her he needed a change of nappy.

EJ pushed the bottle out of his mouth and chuckled at her.

"Yer cheeky monkey!" she exclaimed and tickled his tummy.

After the school run with Tony, Jackie brought EJ back into the house in his car seat. She went through to the Living Room and 'buzzed' Alistair to make a pot of tea. She unbuckled EJ from his seat and lifted him onto her lap to take off his jacket.

He started jiggling excitedly and clapping his hands together as he chuckled. "Mam-mam-mam-ma," he said.

"What's got into you then you little tyke?" she asked him.

"Dad-dad-dad-da."

She soon found out. The sound, distant at first, became louder and more distinct. It was the sound of a TARDIS materialising in the room. The blue wooden police box became fully opaque, and the noise stopped.

She looked down at EJ open mouthed. "I swear ya must be psychic or somethin'," she said in awe.

There was a soft click as the door opened and Rose stepped out, followed by John. Jackie could see immediately that Rose was not herself. She had a haunted look about her, but her face lit up with her old smile when she saw her son holding his arms out for her.

She ran over and enveloped him in a big hug, placing a big wet kiss on his cheek.

"There's my big man. Oh I've missed you," she said as she blinked back tears.

Jackie looked to John, the question on her lips and in her eyes. He came over and gave her a reassuring hug.

"She's missed him," he whispered in her ear. "I'll let her tell you all about it."

She pulled away and nodded at him, smiling her thanks.

"So, you've got time for a cup of tea have ya? Alistair's just makin' a brew."

Rose looked at John and he nodded. "I'll just be in the TARDIS sorting some stuff out."

Rose smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. He was going to give them some mother-daughter time together.

In the Control Room, John contacted Pete and told him where they were.

"Thanks for that John. It'll keep Jackie off my back for a while. You know what she's like when she starts clucking like a mother hen," Pete said with a laugh.

"Yeah, and I think Rose needed to see her too. Those bastards in the jungle rattled her a bit and I think she just needed to see EJ and her Mum."

"Understood," Pete said. "I'll need a full report from both of you though."

"Sure thing Pete, we might be bringing EJ with us though. I sense that Rose is going to be a bit 'clingy' for a while.

"Er, about that John, is Rose alright? The last time I heard her like that was when she first got stranded here in the Lever Room."

"Just wait to see what she puts in her report for now. She'll tell you about it when she's ready."

"Okay, I'll see you later then." Pete ended the call and John shut down the communication panel, before heading down the ramp and out of the door.

When he stepped out into the Living Room, Jackie was hugging her weeping daughter, who in turn was hugging her son. EJ was obviously upset, as he could pick up his mother's distress telepathically.

John sent him a wave of reassurance and happy thoughts, which calmed him and let him settle. Jackie looked up at him, distressed and uncertain of what was going on.

"She just keeps sayin' she's alright," she told him.

"Hey, that's my line," he said jokingly. "Get your own catch phrase."

Rose laughed through her tears and wiped her eyes with a tissue. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"You're in shock Love. When you stop to think about what's happened, that's when it hits you," John said.

"What happened?" Jackie asked. "Why won't anyone tell me?"

"Not now Jackie, maybe later."

What was so bad that they wouldn't talk about it? And then she put two and two together and made five.

"Wha? Dear God no. Don't tell me she was…. Oh Rose, my poor baby, no…. You weren't…?"

"No Mum," she said, barely audible. "I wasn't. But I could have been."

Jackie grabbed her into a protective hug. "My poor baby."

She cast an accusatory glance at John. "How did this happen?" Which John knew meant, 'how could you let this happen to my daughter?'

He had his own guilt about that, thank you very much. He didn't need his mother-in-law blaming him as well.

"Mum," Rose said, as she came out of the hug. "John rescued me. If it wasn't for him…." She looked up at him and blinked away the tears. Neither of them wanted to finish that particular sentence.

"Your Dad would like us to file a report when you feel up to it. I told him we would probably be bringing EJ with us," he said, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah, okay. Let's go an' do it. The sooner it's done, the sooner we can go home." She kissed Jackie on the cheek. "Thanks for havin' EJ Mum. We'll see you later."

John picked up the car-seat and baby bag and they headed for the door of the TARDIS. The door closed, the noise started, and the blue box disappeared. Leaving Jackie to stare at the space it had occupied, wondering how the pair of them were going to deal with the trouble that she could see coming.

* * *

John was sitting at his computer typing up his account of the mission in Cambodia. He had inherited 100 words a minute from Donna, and was making short work of his report. Rose was using dictation software so that she could hold EJ and play with him as she recalled the days events.

She skimped on the details in the shack, merely saying that she had been captured and that John had rescued her. She also reported that John had questioned the five men before handing them over to the Cambodian authorities.

Pete came into the office to see how they were getting on.

"Any idea what's going on, or who's behind all this John?"

"I've got an idea, yes. All we're missing at the moment are the mummies," he said mysteriously. "But to be sure, I need more evidence. I'm waiting for some information from Mexico City and Cairo. Can we have a briefing in the morning when Jack, Gwen and Jake are back?"

"Yes, of course. Shall we say Midday? That will give everyone chance to prepare for it."

John nodded. "Midday then. I'm done here, are you ready Love," he said to Rose.

"Yeah, c'mon, let's go home." She stood and kissed Pete on the cheek. "See you tomorrow Dad."

Pete returned the kiss and kissed EJ on his head. "Get some rest, I'll see you tomorrow."

Hand in hand, they walked out of Special Operations and headed for the Standby Room and the TARDIS.

"So who do you think it is then?" Rose asked as John selected their home from the favourites menu and started the Time Rotor.

"Well, it was in the old universe when I was in my fourth incarnation."

"Hang on," she said smiling and closing her eyes to concentrate. "That was curly hair, long scarf and floppy hat."

One lazy, wet Sunday afternoon, John had shown her his memories of all his incarnations and the travelling companions that he had known.

"That's right. We stumbled across an ancient Egyptian God at the Priory that eventually became UNIT headquarters."

"Which companion was that with?"

He grinned at her. "Sarah Jane. We had a right old time with that one. I'll tell you all about it over dinner if you like. Talking of dinner, do you want take away, or did you want to cook?"

"I can knock up a quick casserole," she said distractedly as she started to think about his previous companions.

She had been jealous of Sarah Jane when she first met her, but she turned out to be a really nice person with no romantic interest in her Doctor.

'I wonder if she was ever in a position where she was nearly raped?' she thought with some resentment. Leela, the Sevateem warrior would probably have bitten the man's face off, not that they would have caught her in the first place.

And what about that girl who called herself Ace? Dorothy her name was. She would have blown the bastard up with some dynamite or her home made explosives that John had told her about.

After they had landed in John's workshop, they ascended the stairs to the ground floor, where the house computer greeted them.

"Hello you lot," Donna-The-House said.

"Hi Donna," they replied.

"It's good to have you back," the house computer said. "I've put the kettle on for a cuppa."

"Oh you life saver," Rose said with a smile.

They sat watching a light hearted game show drinking their mugs of tea, while EJ played in his bouncing chair.

"I'll go and start the dinner," Rose said, wanting to try and get back to some normality.

"I'll give you a hand," John offered.

"No it's okay. You stay here and play with EJ, I can handle it."

When EJ had dropped off to sleep, John wandered into the kitchen to see if he could help.

"Need any help with that?" he asked.

"No, it's okay, I can do it." She had already told him that she wanted to cook. At least this was something she felt she was good at.

"Are you sure? I could chop the peppers."

"I SAID I CAN DO IT!" she snapped at him, and then immediately regretted doing so. "Sorry. Why don't you grab a beer and and put some music on, I'll be through in a minute."

John was concerned, but thought better of antagonising her again. He seemed to be walking on eggshells around her and didn't really know how to deal with the situation. He may have been around humans for centuries, but he'd only been one for a couple of years.

They sat in comparative silence as they ate. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts, and he was reluctant to provoke an outburst again by doing or saying the wrong thing.

After the meal they sat on the sofa watching TV, Rose leaning against John, but not really cuddling like they usually do. Or was she? He thought he might be becoming over sensitive to the situation. Rose seemed happy enough playing with EJ on her lap.

"I'm beat," she said with a yawn.

"Come on then, let's go up," John suggested.

"Okay. Do you mind if EJ sleeps in our bed tonight?"

"Are you kidding? I love to watch you two together when I'm going to sleep, and I love his little snuffles and sighs."

Rose smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek before heading for the door.

John was lying in bed, stroking EJ's head, getting him to relax and fall asleep as Rose came out of the bathroom. She had a 'onesie' on that looked like a big version of EJ's baby grow. John snorted a laugh, and Rose looked at him indignantly.

"Sorry Love. It's just that you and him just look so damn cute in those."

She smiled at him, climbed under the sheets and kissed him on the cheek. She put a hand on EJ's chest and just stared at him, almost in wonder. John couldn't fail to notice that once again, she seemed reluctant to be naked in front of him.

Was this something he should be worried about, or was it just a symptom of the trauma she had been through? He nestled down onto his pillow and just watched them together, letting a sigh of contentment escape from him as they drifted off to sleep.

In the early twilight of morning, John was woken by Rose muttering and tossing her head from side to side. EJ was gently snoring between them as he reached over and gently shook her shoulder.

"Rose," he whispered. She stopped mumbling and started to whimper. He lifted EJ onto his chest and shuffled over to cuddle her, and she snuggled into his chest. He gently stroked her hair as she went back to sleep.

When Rose awoke, she was surprised to find her head resting on John's chest, looking at the beautiful face of her sleeping son. She had no recollection of her disturbing dream that had caused John to embrace her, but she was grateful of his comforting embrace.


	15. Chapter 15

Notes: Rose has to see her counsellor and the Doctor puts the pieces of the puzzle together. (Bare with me because there's a stonker of a cliff hanger in the next chapter.)

**Chapter 15**

THUD! THUD! THWACK! THUD! WHACK!

Rose was in the gym practicing her kick boxing on the heavy bag.

Jab, jab, cross. Low round kick, elbow, knee, knee, elbow.

As she hit the bag, she could see the face of her attacker. (Jab, jab, hook).

"Nice moves 'Wife'," Andy McNab said, using the nickname he had given her. He had come to the gym, apparently to work out, but really he wanted to see how Rose was doing.

"Thanks," she panted. "They should be, you taught them to me," (THUD! THWACK!) she said with a grin.

"Fancy a spar?" he asked her.

"Yeah, okay." They went over to the equipment locker and pulled out gloves, head guards, rib protectors and shin pads. They helped each other to get kitted up before moving over onto the mat area.

They nodded at each other, touched gloves and started circling each other. Rose threw a couple of exploratory jabs at his head, and Andy threw a low kick to her thigh, which she easily dodged.

They traded a few punches and kicks and then Rose managed to grab Andy and throw him to the mat. As he hit the mat she punched the front of his head guard.

"I bet you'd have loved to do that to that rapist, wouldn't you?"

"Wha?" she said.

He swung a kick at her head and knocked her off of the top of him.

"Hah! Gotcha. You have to try and not let yourself get distracted."

They got back to their feet.

"That was cheap," she said angrily. "Does everyone know I was raped?" She launched herself at him, catching him with a barrage of punches and kicks before he caught one of her kicks and tripping her onto the mat.

"Oof!" She landed heavily on her back.

"Anger clouds your judgement. If you're gonna get angry, learn to focus that anger and control it. As to your question, I have access to the report because I'm your section leader."

"And as far as I was aware," He said, as he braced his forearm under her left leg that he'd caught and leaned back to put pressure on the calf. "You weren't raped. Or was that a falsified report?"

"Ow!" Rose exclaimed as the ankle lock came on.

She arched her back and put her hands on the mat, pushing herself into a handstand and taking the pressure off the calf. The sole of her right foot caught Andy full on the face guard, making him stagger back.

Rose gracefully brought her right leg forward, then her left before straightening up from her slow backflip. She had her arms out and a big grin on her face.

Andy was grinning right back at her. "I didn't show you that one. That was very Bruce L..."

WHACK! She caught him with a circling kick to the head. She hadn't relaxed, she had duped him into thinking she'd relaxed.

"Mmmm. Nice move Wife," he said as he rolled across the mat onto his hands and knees, shaking his head to recover from the blow. He span on the mat with his leg out and tripped her up.

"You don't always win a fight you know Rose, and some fights you can't win," he told her. "But you can survive, even if you lose the fight, you can survive."

He stood up and took the head guard off and held out his hand to help her up. She looked at it suspiciously.

He grinned at her. "No tricks, just a helping hand…. if you want it."

She took his hand and he pulled her up onto her feet. She took off her head guard and shook her hair free.

"Thanks Captain," she said quietly.

Andy was quiet and thoughtful as he removed his gloves. As he was helping Rose remove her rib protector, he spoke.

"Can I tell you something in confidence Rose?" he asked her.

"Yeah, sure you can."

"I was on a mission once that went wrong. We had out of date intelligence and the mission was compromised," he said as Rose unfastened his rib protector.

"We were on a covert operation for the government, and officially weren't even in the foreign country."

"What happened?" Rose asked him with concern.

"We all stuck to our cover story of being an advanced surveillance team that were checking for landmines and gun positions. They didn't believe us at first and continued to interrogate us."

"Oh God Andy, that must have been awful. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you," Rose said sympathetically.

Andy smiled kindly at her. "Oh I think you can Rose. I had to let myself be stripped and tied face down on a table. I'll let you imagine the rest," he said with a lopsided grin.

Rose put her hand to her open mouth.

"Let's just say that I didn't sit on a hard chair for a couple weeks," he laughed. "But we survived. We kept our secret of being SAS, and the Government maintained their integrity."

"But how can you laugh about it?"

"Oh that? As soon as we got back to Hereford, we went to the officer's club, got rat arsed and took the piss out of each other. You see Rose; we all knew that any one of us would have taken one for the team…. Even a cock," he said with a wicked grin.

Rose nodded in thought as they cleaned the equipment with the wipes provided, before heading for the showers.

* * *

Rose walked into the Standby Room and straight into a hug from Jack and Gwen, who had flown in that morning.

"Jack! Gwen! How are ya? I heard they tried to blow you up."

"Yeah, you know how it is. I always have to make an impression," Jack said with a grin.

"And we hear you had a rough time of it as well," Gwen said.

"Wha?" Rose said suspiciously. What had they heard? Who'd been talking?

"We heard that you and John got ambushed in the jungle, and typically, John resolved the situation without a fire fight. I can't wait to hear how he did that one."

"Oh that. Yeah, John was brilliant again as usual," she said distractedly.

"Hey, are you alright Rose?" Jack asked. He had known her long enough to know when something was bothering her.

"Yeah, just a bit tired."

John came up behind her and kissed her on the neck before handing her a mug of tea. Everyone noticed how she jumped slightly at the unexpected kiss.

"Did you have a good workout Love?" John asked her, choosing not to mention her jumpiness.

"Oh, thanks Love." She took the offered brew. "I gave Andy a bit of a hidin'," she said with a cheeky smile.

"Hah, I'd have liked to have had a ticket to see that one," John said. "Oh, and we've heard from Jake. He's landed and is on his way back in. He'll be here for the briefing at 12."

"Do we know how Julia is?" Gwen asked.

"Pete's been in touch with the Mexican authorities. He'll give us an update in the briefing. Apparently, Jake refused to leave her until her husband Viktor arrived at the hospital," John said.

Right on cue, Jake walked through the door of the Standby Room. He had his holdall over his shoulder and looked tired.

"Did yer miss me?" he said as he dropped his holdall on the sofa and cheekily stole Rose's mug of tea off her. He took a sip and sighed.

"Mmmm. I needed that. Airlines can't make tea to save their lives."

Everyone enveloped him in a hug and bombarded him with questions about Julia and their mission. He told them briefly as much as he could, and also wanted to catch up on what he'd heard about their individual missions.

He noticed that Rose was a bit edgy and not quite herself.

"Hey, are you alright sweetheart?" he asked quietly when they were away from the crowd.

Rose rolled her eyes at the question. Was everyone concerned about how she was dealing with her ordeal?

"I'm fine Jake, honestly," she lied.

"Good. Glad to hear it," he said with his cheeky grin.

Alice DiMaggio breezed into the Operations Room. She was responsible for the mental well being of Torchwood staff, and had come to remind them all to make an appointment with her office for a debriefing.

She saw her best friend and went over to talk to her. "Hi Rose. How are things?" she said cheerily.

"Oh not you as well? Why is everyone obsessed with how I am, or how I feel?"

"Rose?" Alice said with concern, switching to psychologist mode in an instant. "Is there a reason why people should be concerned about how you feel? I was just saying hello to what I thought was my best friend."

Rose blushed and looked guilty. "Sorry Alice. It's been a bit of a horrible week so far."

"Mmmm. You'd better come and tell me about it," Alice told her.

"I'll try and stop by later. I'm a bit busy at the moment."

"Rose, I'm the duty psychologist, I have the authority to pull you off any assignment for evaluation, but I'm asking you as a friend, come and have a chat with me in my office."

Rose looked over at John suspiciously. Had he contacted Alice to tell her she'd not been herself?

"Is that an order?"

Alice smiled. "Call it a concerned request."

She threw the folder she was holding on the desk. "I'll be in Psych Evaluation if any body wants me." She walked out of Special Operations without looking to see if Alice was following.

In her office, Alice was sat on a comfy sofa, with Rose next to her.

"I've read your report on your mission to Cambodia, it's a bit…. brief," Alice said. "Is there anything else you wanted to say, but maybe thought was too…. embarrassing or intimate?"

"Like what?" Rose asked defensively.

"Well, like being held on your own in a shack by five young men. Five sexually frustrated young men."

Rose looked at Alice suspiciously.

"John's report was a bit more detailed than yours," she told her.

"What?! What did he put in there?" she asked angrily. "Surely he didn't tell everyone I was nearly raped!"

Alice looked sad and disappointed. "No Rose, he didn't. He didn't have to. I thought you knew him better than that, that you could trust him."

She reached out to hold Rose's hand. "Believe it or not, I'm pretty good at what I do. You are exhibiting all the symptoms of post traumatic stress."

Rose started to blink at the tears stinging her eyes. "I do trust him Alice, it's me I don't trust. I'm a trained agent Alice, and I let myself be captured like a complete amateur. I had to rely on John to come and rescue me like a pathetic heroine in a silent movie."

"Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me about it?" Alice said. Rose looked reluctant. "I'm your counsellor, it will all be in confidence."

Rose nodded and started to tell Alice of her ordeal in the jungle, everything, even things she hadn't admitted to herself or to John. Because Alice was right, she was good at her job, and she made Rose think about things she'd been avoiding thinking about.

At midday, everyone assembled in the Executive Meeting Room ready for the briefing. Rose went around the table and sat next to John, reaching for his hand and squeezing it for reassurance.

["Are you okay Love?"] he thought to her.

She thought about that question before she answered it. ["Really? No, not at the moment. But I will be Love, given time."] She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, feeling him squeeze her hand back in support.

Pete walked in with a cup of coffee and took his position at the head of the table.

"Good afternoon people. Thank you for attending this briefing. I'd like to start by saying a big thank you to our three teams who managed to shut down the oscillators and save the Earth."

Pete put his hands together and started the applause that was taken up by the rest of the room.

"Next. Some of you may have spoken to Jake already, but the latest news on Julia is that she came through the surgery well. They removed the bullet from her arm and she will be in a cast for six weeks."

He looked over at Chrissie Anderson. "We've sent a card and flowers, and I understand that Chrissie has started a collection if anyone wants to contribute."

He then got down to the business at hand and gave a rundown of each team's mission, the successful finding and deactivating of the crystals, and the subsequent ambush by groups of five locally hired heavies.

It turned out that Naguib El Mallakh, Research Fellow at Cairo University, had only been trying to delay Beta Team because he was being over protective of the ancient monument. He had called the police when he woke up and realised that he had been stunned.

Pete then looked to John. "I'll now hand over to Dr. Smith who will bring us up to speed on the latest intelligence."

John stood and addressed the meeting.

"I have managed to confirm that each group of five guardians had a leader who was wearing a triangular gemstone. An emerald for the Cambodian group, a ruby for the Egyptians and a Sapphire for the Mexicans."

"Are these significant?" McNab asked.

"I believe so. The last time I saw something like this, it had been a scarab ring worn by a servant of an alien called an Osirian. The gemstone was a psychic controlling device," John replied.

"So who were these people watching the pyramids?" Pete asked.

"Locally sourced heavies, paid to watch over the pyramids once they'd been activated by the servant of Sutekh. Each of the leaders was given a gemstone to wear that they were told would alert them to any theft, which it did. But it also gave telepathic control over the group."

"And you think this is another Osirian," Rose asked.

"Actually, I think it might be the same one. His name was Sutekh, also known as Sutekh the Destroyer. I thought I'd trapped him in a time tunnel, but he's clever, almost as clever as me," John said, waggling his eyebrows at Rose.

"What kind of threat level are we looking at here?" Andy asked.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, 50. I barely managed to trap him in a time tunnel last time. This time he'll know who I am and what I'm capable of. I'm going to have to try and outsmart him by thinking ahead, because he will be able to read my mind and control my body."

John stared into space. "If he's found a way of using his mental abilities across time and universes, then we are in serious trouble."

"So who is this servant of Sutekh you mentioned?" Jack asked.

"It's an alien, tasked with constructing the pyramids with local workers. When things got too 'hot' for Sutekh, he hopped out of this universe and the servant would have shut down the pyramids and lain dormant until activated again by Sutekh's will."

It was Gwen who asked the next question. "What does this servant look like?"

"Like anyone it wants to. Last time it took on the form of Professor Marcus Scarman, an Egyptologist."

"John, the ambush team in Cambodia said something about being paid by a monk," Rose said.

"Ah, right. The monk. Imagine someone comes up to a gang of thieves and says 'watch that pyramid for me and I'll give you lots of money'. What are they going to do? Take the money and run, that's what."

Rose picked up on his train of thought. "Oh I get it. Someone trustworthy asks them, someone they wouldn't dream of stealin' from, say, a monk, and they'll do it."

"Exactly, especially if the leader of the gang is given the gift of an emerald to help them in their task."

"And then Sutekh has them under his control. That's clever," Rose said.

"Yeah," John said. "I would imagine he appeared to the Mexican gang as a Padre, and an Imam to the Egyptians."

"And where will it be now?" Pete asked.

"I'm hoping Chrissie has some information on that," John said.

"What? Me?" Chrissie said in surprise. She hadn't been looking for any alien servant of an Egyptian God.

"Yes, the mystery buyer of the Prang Emerald?" John told her.

"Oh, right. You think that this servant has taken on the form of the owner of the emerald."

"It makes sense. It's the only one in private hands, so it would be the easiest to obtain first."

"And that would explain why it wasn't reported stolen," Jack added.

"Exactly. So what have you got for us Chrissie?"

Chrissie picked up the remote and switched on the media screens.

"I made some enquiries with Christie's auction house, but anonymous bidders stay anonymous. I had to use other, indirect methods."

She clicked the remote to show a number of lists.

"I managed to access British Telecom international call logs from 2001 when the sale of the Prang Emerald was being auctioned. Unfortunately, the logs in 2001 were not that detailed and only indicated a regional exchange in a country."

She clicked the remote again. "The newspapers reported that Christie's claimed the buyer was in the far east. This claim still maintains anonymity, so we have no reason to doubt it."

Another click. "If we look at Christie's international bank transactions for that time, and match them with the telephone call logs, we find ourselves in Singapore at the door of this man."

Chrissie clicked the remote again and the face of a young oriental man appeared on the screen.

"Lee Kuan Yang. Multimillionaire and owner of New World Electronics, and present owner of the Prang Emerald."

"Have we got an address for him?" Andy asked, already forming an covert assault mission in his head.

"Ah, now, there's the problem. His company are being a bit tight lipped on his where abouts. All the PR department will say is that he's taking an extended vacation," Chrissie said.

John suddenly got excited. "Do you have a list of properties he owns?"

Chrissie checked on her tablet. "He's got properties all over the world."

"Hawaii?" John asked hopefully.

Chrissie looked down the list. "Yes! How did you know?"

"Elementary my dear Anderson," he said with a grin. "Imagine three points on the equator. Giza is the apex of the triangle, with Teotihuacan and Koh Ker at the other corners. Where is the energy going to be focussed?"

"Er, opposite the apex?" she asked.

"Exactly! Which just happens to be the continually active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. That's where Sutekh was planning to come through before we shut down his transportation."

"Right then," Pete said. "It looks like you're heading for Hawaii."

"Okay then, Doc and The Wife will be technical lead on the mission. Jack, you'll lead the assault team of Gwen and Jake. You're tasked with getting them to this servant so that they can neutralize the threat."

"Why don't you three go and get something to eat before we go? Being telepathic, Rose and myself have to make some preparations if we're not going to become puppets of Sutekh," John said.


	16. Chapter 16

Notes: So, a team of Torchwood agents set off to do battle with the mighty Sutekh the Destroyer. The Doctor learns that time has not diminished his powers.  
(At the end of the chapter, you have to hear the descending pitch whistle. 'Weeeeoooooo. Dum-dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum…. dum-dum. Dum-dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum…. dum-dum. Whoo-whee-whoo…. wheee-whoooo)  
This is a tribute to the old series where each week they used to leave the Doctor and [insert companion name here] in peril, and us thinking 'Nooo!'. (You have been warned)

**Chapter 16**

John and Rose joined the rest of the team in the restaurant, taking their plates of food and cartons of drinks off their trays and putting them on the table. John took Rose's tray and put them on the receptacle over the rubbish bins.

Jack, Gwen and Jake had been studying maps and floor plans on their tablet PC's while they ate. They had done a virtual drive through in Google Street of the route they would take from the landing zone to Lee Kuan Yang's villa.

"So John, what's your history with this Sutekh guy then?" Jack asked as he had another bite of his burger.

"Back in the old universe, I was travelling with Sarah Jane in the TARDIS when we had a relative continuum stabiliser failure. It was caused by a powerful mental projection."

"Who's Sarah Jane?" Gwen asked looking at Rose, thinking she must be an 'ex' of John's.

Jack wanted to tell them of his memories of her. "Sarah Jane Smith. Investigative journalist and adventurer, at least she was when she travelled with the Doctor.

He looked at John with a mischievous grin. "I think she had the 'hots' for him if truth be told."

"She did not!" John said a little too quick and forcefully. Rose snorted a laugh.

"She admired my superior intellect. And as you rightfully said she had a spirit of adventure."

He bit into a chip before continuing. "Anyway, as I was saying, the relative continuum stabiliser failed. The archaeologist Professor Marcus Scarman had discovered the inner chamber of the Pyramid of Horus, discovering Sutekh and thereby accidentally allowing him a chance of escape."

"I didn't think anything could get through the TARDIS's extrapolator shields."

"Nothing physical, no. But this was a mental projection of immense power."

"So what happened then? I mean to Scarman?" Rose asked.

"Sutekh killed Scarman and controlled his corpse, using it to take the tomb artefacts back to the Old Priory, which is where the TARDIS landed. Scarman and the Osirian service robots constructed a rocket aimed at the Eye of Horus on Mars."

John took a sip of his drink. "I was able to destroy the rocket, but fell under the psychic control of Sutekh's will as a result. Sutekh forced me to take Scarman and the robots to Mars in the TARDIS. Despite my attempt to stop them, Scarman destroyed the Eye and freed Sutekh."

"What did you do?" Gwen asked, hanging on every word.

"I got back to Earth and managed to trap Sutekh inside a time tunnel, formed from his own transportation portal. And that's where he is now, only it appears his mental powers know no bounds. I had no idea that he had previously been in this universe as well."

Alice came into the restaurant and caught Rose's eye.

Rose squeezed John's hand. "Back in a minute Love." She gave him a kiss and stole a chip, which she bit into slowly and seductively, grinning at him as she did so.

'Well, that's an improvement', John thought to himself.

She went over to Alice and she took her to a quiet table.

"Rose, I've been told about this latest mission. Your father wants me to make sure that you are fit to undertake it," Alice said.

"Oh great, now even Dad thinks I'm weak and feeble," Rose said with a huff.

"No Rose, he doesn't. He's worried about you, like any father would be. But he's also Director of Torchwood, and he has responsibilities."

"Yeah, I know. Look Alice, this is like climbing back on the horse for me. I'm going to be John's backup, his technical support. Jack, Gwen and Jake are the assault team. I'll be fine, and I really need to do this," she said, pleading with her best friend.

"I know," Alice said with a smile. "And I think a supporting role will be just the thing you need to get your confidence back. That's why I'm going to recommend that you be included on the mission."

"Oh thanks Alice." Rose hugged her, and they rubbed and patted each others backs.

They finished their lunch and went to the Special Operations Briefing Room, where Andy McNab was ready to go over the final preparations for the mission.

"Doc, would you like to give us some background on our enemy?" Andy said.

"Sutekh is known throughout the Galaxy by many names, including Typhonian Beast, Set, Sadok, Seth and Satan. During ancient times, Sutekh's brother Horus and the remaining seven hundred forty Osirians tracked Sutekh down to Egypt and used their powers to imprison him in the Black Pyramid. The Eye of Horus on Mars beamed a signal to suppress Sutekh's powers and hold him prisoner. The tales of the Osirians were remembered in Egyptian mythology, and he still retained a cult of followers," John started.

"Sutekh possesses immense power: he can change the course of history and destroy entire stellar systems, which included his home planet of Phaester Osiris. He's even able to contain the destructive force of explosives from miles away, although this is difficult and can be easily disrupted by a simple distraction."

Rose noticed that John's face was full of worry.

"He is incredibly powerful and easily able to defeat a Time Lord. His powers become apparent when his eyes glow green, allowing him to leave a person in agonising pain for centuries. Furthermore, his mental abilities allow him to easily dominate others, making them puppets to his will."

'Did he just shudder'? Rose thought.

"He is also able to telepathically read other beings minds including mine, and monitor progress several thousand miles away with the aid of Osiran computer technology. This includes reanimating corpses for servants, as he did with Marcus Scarman."

John looked around the room. He could see that everyone understood the seriousness of the threat Sutekh posed.

"He can focus his power through these servants, enabling them to burn people to death with a touch, and was able to destroy the Eye of Horus on Mars from Earth when Scarman was within a few metres of it."

"So not all Osirians are like this, if his brother imprisoned him?" Jake asked.

"No, Sutekh was somewhat paranoid, fearing that all life forms might potentially rise up against him and therefore he destroys all life wherever he finds it. Despite this though, he is extremely intelligent and patient."

"Right then people, we know the plan. We have to take this servant down fast, before he knows we are there," Andy said.

"Sutekh will be channelling his energy through a conduit. Last time it was a scarab ring. We need to find this conduit and destroy it," John told them.

Andy had already been to the armoury and requisitioned their Glock 17C automatic pistols.

"These Glocks are loaded with a special ammunition that John says will kill Lee Kuan Yang, the servant of Sutekh, who happens to already be dead," Andy said.

Chrissie uploaded the latest intelligence available on Lee Kuan Yang and his villa in Hawaii. The team started to load their backpacks with their equipment.

"John, do you want to call the TARDIS into the Standby room," Pete said. "The guys in the garage have some transportation that they are keen for you to try out."

"That sounds interesting," John said as he reached out his phone and called up the TARDIS app.

Once Andy was happy that everyone knew the mission profile and could recall details from memory, he declared the mission a 'go'. They moved through to the Standby Room and started boarding the TARDIS.

Rose gave her Dad a hug and a kiss, before saying goodbye and walking through the door.

"See you later Pete," John said before entering the TARDIS and closing the door.

In a corner of a car park, on the west side of the island, at 74-5583 Luhia St, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, United States, under a palm tree, a blue wooden police box slowly materialized to the sound of the universe trying to catch its breath.

In London, it was 14:00, which meant it was 04:00 in Hawaii. 'A good time for a raid' Andy had said. This location was at the Kona Coast Shopping Centre, several miles from Lee Kuan Yang's secluded villa on Hao Street. John felt this was far enough away to keep the TARDIS out of harms way.

The doors opened, and three electric trail bikes silently whispered out of the TARDIS. John and Rose on one, Jack and Gwen on another, and Jake had one to himself.

"Ooh, this takes me back a bit. Do you remember the last time I rode pillion with you?" Rose asked John.

"Oh yeah," John smiled. "The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. We had that nasty alien face stealer to deal with."

"At least I was dressed a bit more feminine then. Pink heels and layers of tulle, rather than black cotton drill and boots," she said with a laugh.

They had chosen to ignore airports, passports and customs and excise for this mission. It was a quick in, eliminate and out before anyone knew they were there.

The bikes were fitted with the latest high tech computers and sat-nav, and boasted the latest high torque superconducting motors. The sat-nav led them out of the car park and onto Palani Road, where they crossed the Queen Kaahumanu Highway and headed north towards the Hawaii Belt Road.

The highway was flat and relatively straight, with a few gentle, curving bends, and lined with lush vegetation. The bikes silently and effortlessly accelerated to 100 mph. Rose tightened her grip around John's waist, which, if she'd have been able to see his face, produced a boyish grin.

The lights were off on the bikes and they were using the night vision visors on their combat helmets to see where they were going. They zoomed passed junctions and over a crossroads; the right hand road of which led to what Rose considered to be a very nice housing estate.

The sat-nav told them they were still on Hawaii Belt Road, and in a couple of miles they would reach the turning for Kaloko Drive.

"Sharp turn coming up on the right onto a single track road," Jake announced.

As they travelled along Kaloko Drive, with its pleasant grass verges, they could have been on any country lane in England. It was only the occasional large fern or palm tree that gave away the true location.

They took a long lazy curve to the left and then accelerated up the hill.

"I think you must have inspired the mechanics in the workshop Doc," Jack said over the headset. "These bikes are terrific."

They took another long cure, this time to the right when Jake spoke into the headsets.

"Sharp turn on the left. This is the street we want to be on."

The road was a long, gentle incline and the bikes flew along with no effort at all, until they crested a hill to come to a private road on their left that had a low gate and an intercom. The simple metal gate was on free standing gate posts which would stop a four wheeled vehicle. The trail bikes however were able to squeeze between the post and the herbaceous border.

They made their way silently down the road until they were able to see the luxury villa. They dismounted and took covering positions. They were in stealth, agent mode now, all except for John who just crouched down and kept quiet while the experts did their thing

Chrissie had hacked into the HR records of New World Electronics and found that the villa had two security staff on duty at any one time. She had also pulled maps and floor plans and so the team knew the layout of the area and could function as if they had been there before.

ZAPP!

"Beta Three reporting one target down. Over," Jake reported.

"Roger that," Jack replied.

"Despatch to Beta One. Satellite thermal imaging shows another heat source on the far side of the villa. Over," Chrissie told them.

"Gwen, Jake. Would you like to take care of that? Over," Jack asked.

"Consider it done. Over," Gwen said.

John watched as Gwen and Jake faded into the darkness. They were impressive, and it gave him a great feeling of pride to think that his Rose could do all that and still be the caring and considerate person she had always been.

A few minutes later they heard a quiet 'zap' and Jake reporting that the other security guard was out of action.

"Jake, Gwen, enter through the back of the house, we'll go in through the the front. Over," Jack said.

"Roger that," Jake replied.

John and Rose followed behind Jack as he led the way to the front door. John took out his sonic screwdriver, unlocked the door, and Jack led the way in.

They followed the hallway along to an open plan living area, and a sight that was very disturbing. There was a man in a white suit with a mandarin collar, who Rose thought looked just like Dr. No from the James Bond film of the same name.

But that wasn't the disturbing part. What was disturbing was the sight of Jake and Gwen standing still, pointing their Glock 17C's at each others chests.

"Ah, the rest of the guests. Please come and join us," the man in white said.

John and Rose were compelled to walk towards the man in white, while Jack moved towards Jake and Gwen. They were stiffed legged and dragging their feet, trying to resist the movement.

"Why do I feel like I'm in a science fiction B movie?" Rose asked John as they stood in front of the man.

The man was laughing in a sinister fashion. "Oh I never tire of watching people walk like that."

"The late Lee Kuan Yang I presume?" John said.

"And who have we got here then?" Yang asked, his green scarab ring glowing. "It's the Time Lord! We meet again, Doctor…. But wait, you are the Doctor, and yet not the Doctor."

Yang looked at Rose. "And who do we have here? A valiant woman…. You're wife! Oh my revenge is going to be exquisite."

"What are you going to?" John asked.

"Me?" Yang said with a single laugh. "I'm not going to do anything. You on the other hand, Doctor Not-The-Doctor, are going to kill your wife," he said, suddenly cold and evil.

"NEVER!" John spat out. "I will fight you and I WILL stop you!"

"What, like they will?" He waved his hand casually at Jack, Gwen and Jake, who were standing in a triangle, pointing their pistols at each other.

"Oh look, a triangle. How apt." He clicked his fingers.

BLAM! Three shots rang out simultaneously, blood splattered across their friend's chests.

"NOOOO!" Rose screamed.

Their friends staggered backwards away from each other and fell to the floor, unmoving. Rose looked at John through the tears in her eyes. She saw his expression and her blood ran cold.

His face was full of anguish and despair, mixed with a cold rage, anger and determination. He looked at Yang, his eyes black with ancient fury.

"You-will-pay-for-this," John said through gritted teeth.

"Oh no, Doctor Not-The-Doctor. It is you that will pay, for trying to trap me in this time tunnel. Do you know how boring it is in here."

Yang looked at Rose. "Give your husband your weapon my dear."

"No!" Rose said, but her hand held the Glock by the barrel, and presented the grip for John.

"Take the gun and point it at your wife," Yang commanded.

"No! I won't!" John said defiantly, his hand trembling as it started to reach for the gun.

Rose was crying, as John shook his head violently, his arm rising to point the gun at her chest.

"Please, don't do this," John pleaded. "You can do anything to me. I won't fight you, but let Rose go. I'm begging you."

"I am doing anything I like to you, I'm making you, a man who hates guns, shoot the love of his life. Oh revenge doesn't get any better than this."

"John?" Rose whimpered.

"Rose," John said, his voice breaking.

"Shoot her," Yang said.

BLAM!


	17. Chapter 17

Notes: OMG! What's happened? What's going to happen? How is this going to turn out? Read on and find out.

**Chapter 17**

"So Human Time Lord Metacrisis, you have your time machine in this universe. Excellent. You will take me to it, we will collect the oscillators, and we will liquefy the walls of reality to allow my master, Sutekh the Destroyer, to escape his prison."

John was silent. He stared at the bloody chest of his dead wife. No! It couldn't be. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She was his wife, she was EJ's mother.

EJ needed his mother. How would they cope without her? It must be a mistake, or a bad dream. That was it, it was a bad dream. He would wake up now and Rose would be smiling at him for waking her up with one of his nightmares.

Not that he had nightmares anymore. Rose had cured him of his demons that used to visit him in the darkness. This was an anxiety dream about him losing his Rose, the only demon he had now that had any influence over him.

He found that he was walking down the hallway to the front door and picking up some car keys from the hall stand. He wasn't really paying any attention to what his body was doing. He wanted to stay with Rose and cuddle her until she woke up, but his body had other ideas.

He went through the front door with Yang and around to the garage, where an expensive Rolls Royce Wraith was parked. John clicked the central locking and sat in the driver's seat. Yang walked around the front of the car and sat in the back seat.

"A chauffeur, how splendid," Yang said.

John started the car and drove out of the garage and down the drive, turning right onto Hao Street. He drove down the road the way he had come with Rose on the trail bike. Rose! She was lying on the floor back there without so much as a by your leave.

What kind of a husband was he? He knew Sutekh was powerful, but he thought his love of Rose would have counted for something when it came to protecting her.

"You're quiet Doctor Not-The-Doctor. Your wife always loved your runaway gob. Did she ever tell you that?" Yang said

"Shut - the - fuck - up," John said slowly, fighting for control of his body and failing.

"You know Doctor Not-The-Doctor, your death will have to be spectacular. Ironic and spectacular."

Yang laughed. "I know, once I've returned from this dismal tunnel, you can wear the scarab and you will commit atrocities across the globe that will make you every police forces most wanted."

"No," John said, as the car turned onto Kaloko Drive.

"Yes," Yang said. "And then you will be hated and killed as a terrorist. And the world will have no one to protect it when I choose to destroy it."

John sat silently, his body driving the car, Yang navigating it.

"Nothing to say, Doctor Not-The-Doctor? Aren't you going to say something melodramatic and tell me that I'll never get away with it?"

"Get your entertainment elsewhere Sutekh. You won't enjoy your triumph."

"Really! How so?"

"The anticipation gives you a thrill, but the action leaves you disappointed. Like when YOU killed Rose. You thought you would enjoy that, but you didn't did you?"

It was Yang's turn to be silent as the car turned onto Hawaii Belt Road.

"And do you know why? Because you are a psychopath. You can't feel emotions. No happiness, no sadness. Nothing. just a big black hole of nothing. No love. Hah! you can't even hate properly."

"Oh I can hate Doctor Not-The-Doctor. I can hate the person who trapped me in this tunnel."

"Call that hate? One person? Come on in and have a look Sutekh. Look at the Daleks. I have hated an entire race and destroyed them! Now that's hate."

"Well Doctor Not-The-Doctor, you have been busy. You know, I might just keep you alive. You have so much to teach me."

They eventually came to the Queen Kaahumanu Highway, crossed into Palani Road and turned into the car park. John got out of the car and opened the door for Yang.

"Thank you my man."

They walked across the car park to stand in front of the blue, wooden police box. John took out his key and put it in the lock, turning it and pushing the door open. He stepped inside.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

He heard gunshots from outside the TARDIS, but he was still unable to turn and see what was going on.

"THE RING!" he shouted to whoever it was. "SHOOT THE SCARAB!"

* * *

Rose heard John and Yang leave the room and walk down the hallway. She heard a jangling of keys before the front door opened and closed.

"Ow," she said, rubbing her chest as she sat up. "Are you guys okay?"

"Rose, what the hell is going on?" Jack asked. "When I got shot, I heard Chrissie in my headset telling me not to move and play possum."

"Yeah, sorry about that guys, but we had to make Sutekh believe that we're dead so that we can move around without him knowin' about it."

"Were those bullets special FX blood capsules?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, that was John's idea. He forgot to tell me that they bloody hurt though." She popped the clip out of her Glock and replaced it with a clip of real bullets. She pulled the slide back and loaded a round into the chamber.

"Tell me about it," Gwen said, rubbing her sternum.

"You'd better all change your ammo," she told them. "Jack, we have to beat John and Yang to the TARDIS. Do you think you can do it?" Rose said as she moved down the hallway.

"Sure can Sweetheart." They went out the front door and over to the bikes. "Hop on and hold tight." He straddled the bike and Rose climbed on behind him, hugging his waist.

"Beta one to…. Oh sod that. Chrissie, this is Jack. Deactivate Doc's headset, activate his transponder and get a fix on it."

"Okay Jack, I've got a lock on it," Chrissie replied. The transponder was a 'tattoo' made of nano circuits that acted as a location beacon for field agents.

"Good girl. Now I'm on a trail bike and I'm going to need cross country directions to beat the Doc to the TARDIS. Can you do it?"

"Mmmm. I've not been asked that one before. Hang on; I'll have to do this on the fly."

Jack powered up the bike and zipped down the driveway, turning right onto Hao Street, following the turn John would have taken.

"Jack, take the next left onto Hao Way," Chrissie directed.

Jack and Rose leaned heavily to the left as the bike skidded to make the turn.

"At the end of the street you'll be going cross country. Just head down the hill, through the trees, and you'll come to Lawai'a Drive."

Jack hit the grass, dirt and scrub and headed for the trees. Rose was reminded of the speeder bike chase in Return Of The Jedi, as Jack weaved through the trees. Chrissie was giving him course corrections as he went.

When he came out onto Lawai'a Drive, he opened up the throttle, which caused the bike to do a small wheelie. Rose gripped even tighter, causing Jack to grin.

"There's a sharp left and right bend ahead Jack."

"Okay." Jack throttled back to take the bends and then opened it up again.

"Turn left onto Mamalahoa Highway and right into the next driveway."

Chrissie led them across rough ground again, past back gardens and down dirt tracks, until they came to Old Palani Road, which led eventually to Hawaii Belt Road.

"We know where we are now Chrissie, thanks for that."

He turned right onto Queen Kaahumanu Highway and zipped across the road, skidding to a halt on the grass verge. They abandoned the bike and scrambled down the grass bank to hide behind the TARDIS as the headlights of the Rolls Royce panned across the car park and came to rest on the blue box.

They stood with their backs to the TARDIS, listening to the car doors open and close. Rose took out her Glock, and Jack did the same. She pursed her lips and put a finger to them in the universal gesture of 'shush'.

She heard the key push into the lock and sneaked around the corner and along the side of the TARDIS. Jack did the same on the opposite side. She heard the door push open and footsteps on the floor grating.

She spun around the corner, Glock in outstretched right hand, left hand supporting under the grip. It was Yang and he hadn't even had time to register that she was there.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

She shot him four times in the head, blood and gore splattering out of the back of his head. Rose lowered her arms to her side, or more accurately, had them lowered for her.

"THE RING! SHOOT THE SCARAB!" she heard John shout from inside the TARDIS.

"I can't," she replied.

"Rose?" John's voice was quiet with disbelief. "ROSE! You're alive!" he exclaimed.

"It would appear so," Yang said as he turned his bloody face towards her.

Rose felt bile rise in her throat as she looked at the mutilated face of Yang.

"How did you achieve resurrection?" he asked, and then smiled as he read her thoughts. "An illusion. Learned from a story told by your friend…. Alistair. Very clever, but not clever enough."

Rose started to lift her pistol towards her head until the barrel was resting against her temple.

"Come Doctor Not-The-Doctor, you must see this."

John appeared at the door, looking longingly at Rose. Surely he wouldn't have to watch her die again. He didn't think he could stand it.

"Oh, and Jack. Perhaps you would care to join us as well."

Jack came around the corner and stood still, watching his friends face this powerful foe.

"John, what do we do now?" Rose asked, her voice trembling.

"You die of course," Yang said.

["Rose. I believe in you. You saved me on Satellite Five. You saved me in an alternate time line, and I believe you will save me again, my wolf girl,"] John said in her head, his voice and his face full of conviction.

"Wha'?" At first Rose didn't understand what he meant, but she didn't have to.

The vivid green light of the scarab ring started to turn more of a lime green colour. Then it seemed to have more of a yellow hue, as though the power of the ring was struggling to maintain its purity. Now it had a definite yellow core, forcing out the green until it shone with a bright golden light.

"NO! What is happening?" Yang screamed. He looked at Rose and his mouth fell open.

Her body was enveloped in a golden haze, and her eyes blazed with the fury of the sun.

"I will have you safe, my husband, my love. Protected from this false god." Her voice was other worldly.

Her golden gaze looked through Yang, straight to Sutekh. "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence, and I confine them for eternity in a never ending loop of time."

A golden beam of energy travelled from her hand and enveloped Yang's body until it was too bright to look at.

"Rose," John said quietly as he stood by her side. "You can stop now."

"John...? How...? Oh, my head's killin' me," she cried.

"Take the ring off his finger and stare into it my Love." She did as he said and thin wisps of golden energy started to leave her eyes and travel to the ring. More and more threads emerged until there was a steady stream of bright energy.

Rose suddenly collapsed into John's arms and he lowered her to the tarmac, where the ring rolled out of her hand. Jack went to pick it up.

"DON'T!" he warned him. "It contains the energy of a small star."

"Doc, what just happened?" Jack asked him. "How could Rose generate all that energy and survive?"

"She didn't generate it. Just like the ring was a conduit for Sutekh's energy, Rose was a conduit for the TARDIS. Do you remember when Margaret the Slitheen looked into the heart of the TARDIS? Well Rose channelled that energy through the ring and right back at Sutekh."

Rose fluttered her eyes open. "John? What happened?"

"You did it Rose. You defeated Sutekh."

"Me? But how?" she asked, slightly puzzled.

"How did you survive me shooting you is a more pertinent question," John said.

She reached up and stroked his face. "I'll tell you over a banana ice cream sundae."

He looked puzzled, then his eyebrows rose as if a realisation had dawned on him, and finally he broke into an enormous grin.

"Oh Rose, that's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."

"Where am I?" a voice said from behind them that made them jump. Rose and Jack had their pistols out in an instant.

There, sat on the tarmac rubbing his head, was Lee Kuan Yang. Multimillionaire and owner of New World Electronics.

"Oh Rose," John said with a smile. "You've done it again. You bad Bad Wolf."


	18. Chapter 18

Notes: So how did they do it? And will Rose finally get over her psychological trauma? This is it, the final chapter. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to have a read, and thank you for the reviews.

**Chapter 18**

**Torchwood Special Operations Briefing Room.**

**Earlier in the day.**

"Why don't you three go and get something to eat before we go? Being telepathic, Rose and myself have to make some preparations if we're not going to become puppets of Sutekh," John said.

"What are you up to John?" Rose asked as the other three left the room.

"Yeah, I'm wondering that as well," Andy said.

"Okay, here's the real plan. Andy, Chrissie, I'm sorry to lay this at your door, but you are the only people who will know what's really going on," John said.

"Andy. Rose told me about some 'blood bullets' you use for training exercises. Have you got any for their Glock pistols?"

"Yeah. They're in the armoury."

"Great. Can you get them and load all the team's guns with them?"

"Sure, but why? What have you got in mind?"

"Last time I met Sutekh, I very nearly didn't make it. I had to make him think I had been strangled by one of his robots. I used my respiratory bypass," John told them.

"Y'know, I miss that respiratory bypass. It was brilliant for…."

"John!" Rose said. "Stay on topic."

"Oh, right. Well, I'm certain he will take great delight in killing us all with our own weapons. The blood capsules will convince him that he's succeeded and he'll stop focussing on us."

"But won't he just read our minds and know it's a trick?" Rose asked.

"Oh my brilliant Rose. Always asking the right questions." He turned to Andy and Chrissie. "Have you noticed that about Rose? Always asking the right questions?" They looked at him, just grinning. Rose rolled her eyes.

"What...? Oh, topic. Stay on it. Right. Jack, Gwen and Jake have gone to lunch, so as far as they are concerned, everything is 'real', and Sutekh will believe it too."

He looked at Chrissie, suddenly serious. "Andy, I want Chrissie on Despatch for this mission. You can use the video feed on our helmet cameras to see who has been shot. When you hear the gunfire Chrissie, you have to tell everyone to keep still and play possum. They have to make Sutekh believe they are dead."

"Yeah, okay. I can do that."

John kissed her on the cheek.

"You're going to use Alistair's gun trick that he used to escape from the crime syndicate, aren't you?" Rose asked.

"Yep!" John said with a smile.

"But John, won't Sutekh be able to read our minds and find out that it's a trick?" she said.

John was looking at Andy and Chrissie, and he had a proud smile on his face. He pointed at Rose as he spoke.

"Did you hear that? She did it again." He turned to Rose and held her shoulders gently, looking into those gorgeous hazel eyes. "He would be able to, if we knew about it. But we're not going to know about it, so he won't," he said in a riddle.

"Wha'?"

"We're going to hide the knowledge in our memories, in a post hypnotic suggestion. Every time we try to remember any of this, all we will see is... Oh I don't know, what about EJ chuckling as he bounces in front of the telly? I don't think even Sutekh would be able to get past our love for our son."

"Oh John, that's brilliant," Rose said.

"I'll have to program a release into our memories so that we can recover them. Yours will be easy. As soon as you get shot with the blood capsules, you'll know you have to play dead and the whole plan will be back in your head."

"And what about you?" Rose asked.

"Ah, mine will be a bit more difficult. If Sutekh is the half decent psychopath I think he is, he'll keep me alive as long as he can." John hesitated; he looked uncomfortable with what he was going to say next.

"Rose, I think he will make me shoot you," he said.

"Well that's okay. They're dummy bullets. You won't really be killing me."

"But I won't know that, will I? As far as I will be concerned, I will have watched me shoot you dead."

Rose's eyes and mouth went wide. "Oh John. You can't do that. There must be another way to do this."

He continued to hold her shoulders and look intently into her eyes. "If he gets the slightest whiff of a trap, he'll incinerate us all where we stand. It has to be this way."

Rose pulled him into a hug. "I can't bear to think of you having to watch that John."

"Hey, I'll be alright as soon as my memories return, which is why I need a code word that you can remember to bring me back."

Rose thought about it and then came out of the hug to look at him.

"I know. Banana ice cream sundae, your favourite."

"Hah! That's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Okay let's do it. Are you ready?"

Rose nodded, and John turned to Andy. "Once we've finished this, we won't remember this conversation. Just point us in the direction of the others."

Getting a nod from Andy, John turned back to Rose and they put their first and second fingers on their temples. They closed their eyes, and John rested his forehead against hers. And there they stood, motionless for a minute or more.

They lowered their hands, opened their eyes and smiled at each other.

"Hello," Rose said.

"Hello," he replied.

They looked around the Briefing Room, and were puzzled that Jack, Gwen and Jake were missing.

"Where'd everyone go?" Rose asked.

"Down to the restaurant to get some lunch before setting off on the mission," Andy told them.

"Ooh, chips," John said. "I fancy some chips. C'mon Wife, I'm starving."

Rose rolled her eyes and laughed as he took her hand and headed for the restaurant.

* * *

**Despatch desk. Torchwood Special Operations Briefing Room.**

**A short while ago.**

Chrissie Anderson was stationed at the Despatch desk in Special Operations. Calling it a 'desk', was a bit of a misnomer. It was a bank of keyboards, knobs, dials, multimedia sliders, buttons and switches, under a wall of media screens, satellite uplinks and downlinks.

It was the nerve centre of Special Operations, the nerve centre of Torchwood. The dispatcher was the link between the field agents and the high tech services that could save their lives. At present, the large central screen was partitioned into six.

"Right Chrissie," Andy said. "Who have we got where?"

"Top left is John. Top middle, Rose. Top right, Jack. Bottom left, Gwen and bottom middle is Jake."

The bottom right partition was a satellite feed of the team in infrared. The five helmet cameras showed a road with scenery flying past at 100 miles an hour.

"Sharp turn coming up on the right onto a single track road," they heard Jake announce. He was riding point and the bikes onboard computers were linked to the Despatch desk feeds, giving them all the navigation and traffic information they needed.

Chrissie followed their progress on the screens.

"Sharp turn on the left. This is the street we want to be on." Jake said.

Chrissie centred the satellite on the luxury villa and started a surveillance sweep. She saw the three bikes moving up the driveway and approach the villa.

The bottom middle screen showed Jake moving behind cover to take out the first security guard.

"Beta Three reporting one target down. Over," Jake reported.

"Roger that," Jack replied.

On the bottom right screen, Chrissie could see a human shaped heat source at the other side of the villa.

"Despatch to Beta One," Chrissie called. "Satellite thermal imaging shows another heat source on the far side of the villa. Over,"

She watched Gwen's and Jake's heat sources move through the undergrowth around the villa, and watched the feed from their helmet cameras.

"Beta Three reporting second target down. Over."

After that, the heat sources disappeared inside the villa and Chrissie concentrated on the helmet feeds. That was strange, Jake and Gwen were just standing there, looking at Lee Kuan Yang.

When the rest of the team came into the room and started to move strangely, she knew something was wrong.

"Andy? We've got a problem," she called out.

Andy had gone to check the status displays of the rest of Blue Watch, but came running back at Chrissie's call.

"Is it kicking off?" he asked.

"I think it's about to, look."

Andy studied the video feeds and listened to the dialogue.

"Get ready Brains," he said.

"Oh look, a triangle. How apt," they heard Yang say before he clicked his fingers.

BLAM! Three shots rang out simultaneously, blood splattered across the trio's chests. Chrissie opened Jack, Gwen and Jake's channels.

"DON'T MOVE! Play possum. Do not react to anything. It's all part of John's plan," she told them.

Andy and Chrissie watched the rest of the plan unfold, pretty much as John had predicted.

"How the hell does he do that?" Andy asked in a mixture of amazement and admiration. "What we could have done with him in my old unit."

They saw John and Yang leave the villa and head for the garage.

"Ah. I don't think this was part of the plan," Andy said. "Where are they going?" he asked as a vehicle drove down the driveway and turned right onto the road.

They saw Jack and Rose run to one of the bikes and chase after the car.

"Beta one to…. Oh sod that. Chrissie, this is Jack. Deactivate Doc's headset, activate his transponder and get a fix on it."

Chrissie's hands flew over the controls as she carried out Jack's request. She activated John's tattoo beacon and overlaid it on the satellite image.

"Okay Jack, I've got a lock on it," Chrissie told him.

Jack's next transmission took her by surprise. "Good girl. Now I'm on a trail bike and I'm going to need cross country directions to beat the Doc to the TARDIS. Can you do it?"

"Well, that answers the question of where they're heading," Andy said.

"Mmmm. I've not been asked that one before. Hang on; I'll have to do this on the fly." Chrissie pulled up a detailed topographic map of the area and overlaid that as well.

She monitored their progress and used a software algorithm to show her the quickest route from A to B. She directed them down side roads, across open ground, along alleyways and back onto the main roads that would get them to their destination before John and Yang.

"We know where we are now Chrissie, thanks for that," Jack said.

Andy and Chrissie then watched in helpless horror, as Yang refused to die and threatened Rose with her own gun. They then thought that there was a fault or interference on the cameras, when a golden light blanked out the feed.

When the video returned, everything seemed to have been resolved. Yang must have been shot with the blood capsules, because he was sitting on the tarmac and seemed to be perfectly well.

"Alpha One to Despatch. Mission accomplished. We're just tying up loose ends and then we'll be coming home. Over," John said.

"Roger that, Alpha One. Congratulations. We look forward to seeing you back safe and sound. Over and out," Chrissie replied.

Andy opened the microphone. "Well done team. I can't wait to read the report on this one. The drinks are on me."

* * *

**Lungbarrow Tree House. TardisBay. The Isle of Gallifrey. Beta Pegasi II. (Also known as Paradise) 196 light years from Earth.**

Rose was sitting on the sofa in the Living Room of their Tree House, holding EJ on her lap and singing a nursery rhyme. She was wearing a white, chamois leather mini dress that she had made in the style that Leela sometimes used to wear when she was with the Doctor. She had seen it in John's memories.

John was sitting next to her in his animal skin loin cloth and a sleeveless animal skin jacket. He was thinking that when Leela had worn that dress, it hadn't had the effect that it was having now, with Rose wearing it.

Rose turned to look at him and returned his smile.

"John," she started to ask, not sure if she should bring up the subject in their beautiful hide away. "Y'know when you hid our memories from Sutekh so that he wouldn't know we were tryin' to trick him?"

"Yes?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Welll. I was wonderin' if that would work with my memories of that jungle shack in Cambodia. Y'know, make 'em go away so that I wouldn't keep dwellin' on it and what could have happened."

"Are your sessions with Alice not helping then?"

"Oh yeah, they're helpin' and Alice is very good, but it's not the same as before. I just thought that as it had worked for Donna…."

"That was different Love. Donna had every scrap of knowledge of me, the TARDIS and our travels erased. I don't think you want that, do you?"

"No, of course not."

"Taking part of a memory away, leaves you with the rest, and you know how annoying it is when you are trying to remember something that is on the tip of your tongue. Eventually it would send you psychotic and you'd end up suicidal."

"Oh, okay. It was just a thought." She went back to playing with EJ.

He hesitated before continuing. "Rose, there is a technique I can use to help you, it's called memory dampening."

"What's that?"

"It's a way of taking the edge off the memories and giving them a positive spin, rather than the negative feelings you have at the moment."

"How does it work?"

"It's a bit intimate, which is why I haven't mentioned it before. You let me share your memories of the incident, and you share mine. In a few minutes we can achieve weeks of cognitive therapy."

"You don't take away the memories then?"

"No, but we have to relive them together, and I don't know if I can watch that."

"I'll be there with you won't I? We can face anythin' together you and me. We're a team, remember? Shiver and Shake? I trust you John."

She put EJ on the sofa between them and took his hands, raising them to her head. He touched his first and second fingers to her temples, and she did the same to him. They were standing hand in hand inside the jungle shack, looking at her tied to the grubby bed.

John watched with suppressed rage as the young man started cutting off her clothes with his knife. She could feel the Storm rising in him. She turned towards him and stroked his cheek.

"At this point, hearing you in my mind made me feel safe and gave me hope."

He found it hard to watch the scene in front of him so he led her to the window and nodded outside. Rose saw him hiding behind a tree with his sonic screwdriver in his mouth.

He was wrapping duct tape around his stun gun and induction coil to form one unit. His sonic was then soldering bits of wire between the two items.

"What were you doing?" she asked.

"Creating a wide field energy discharge from the stun gun, through the inductance coil. Anyone inside the shack gets zapped…. Sorry."

"Hey, those guys had AK47's. That was a stroke of genius."

That thought from Rose helped him to reconcile the fact that he wasn't in the room stopping that bastard from doing what he was doing.

They turned back to the scene on the bed. Her assailant had grabbed her chin and threatened her, and they could see the tears rolling down the sides of her cheeks. Her wrists and ankles were raw from the rope burns of her struggle.

She had made the difficult choice to surrender to her attacker, to allow herself to be raped. She was preparing to vacate her mind and reside with John for the duration. John reinforced the feelings of courage and reduced those of shame and guilt.

Then the stunner came through the window and they saw Rose snap her head around to look at the man straddling her. She pushed her head back against the grubby mattress and crashed her forehead into the man's cheek.

At that moment, John associated that memory of the whole event with a defiant hope. She had fought back, in the end she had not surrendered, she had fought back.

She watched her body convulse from the energy discharge and her attacker collapsed on top of her. John came through the door and ran over to her, grabbing the young man by the hair and roughly dragging him onto the floor where he kicked him in the ribs.

Rose could see the Storm in his eyes, and when she looked at John who was watching himself, she saw sadness and self loathing. He was ashamed of kicking an unconscious man who couldn't defend himself.

"I should be better than that, but I thought…."

She squeezed his hand in support. "Under the circumstances, I think he got away quite lightly," she told him. "That's not where I would have kicked him," she observed.

They watched as John cut the ropes holding her to the bed, and carefully cut the rope around her neck that was holding the knot in her mouth. He gently picked her up off the bed and carried her out of the door.

They took their fingers off their temples and they were back in the Tree House. Rose grabbed him around the neck and pulled him into a hug. It had worked; there was no shame, no blame, just triumph. She had fought back, and with John's help she had survived.

And John's guilt at not stopping them from taking her had diminished, replaced instead with knowledge that he had saved her. He had neutralised the threat, no one had died and Rose was so proud that he had weathered the Storm.

They walked along the jungle path towards the pool hand in hand. Rose held EJ in her right arm, his one leg in front of her hip and the other behind.

"Ca' 'key," he said pointing up at a tree. Rose looked up where he was pointing.

"What's he saying?" John asked.

"I thought you spoke all languages," Rose teased. "Cat monkey, up there in the tree."

John looked up and saw one of the tabby monkeys running along a branch.

They came to the clearing in the forest, where the pool had a gentle waterfall pouring into it.

"How's that arm now Julia?" Rose asked as they approached.

"It's unbelievable. There's not even a scar where the bullet wound was and the bones have all knitted back together. Those nano genies really are magical." Julia lifted her arm out of the water to show them. Her husband Viktor looked again, just to make sure it wasn't a dream.

"Ooh, nano genies. I like that," John said with a grin.

Rose knelt down by the poolside to talk to her friend.

"I feel a bit of a fraud now, taking this sick leave when I'm all healed."

"Hey, Alice wouldn't allow it. You have to recover from the psychological trauma. That's why I'm here," Rose told her with a laugh.

"It is very kind of you to let us stay here," Viktor said. He spoke perfect English with a hint of a Dutch accent.

"That's no problem," John said. "It's nice to be able to share this paradise with people.

Julia had been tickling EJ while he was sitting on Rose's lap.

"Are you coming in?" she asked. "The water's lovely and invigorating."

"I haven't got my bikini on. To be honest Julia, when we are here on our own, we normally walk about in the buff."

"Really," Julia said in surprise. Rose had always seemed so prim and proper when she was at Torchwood. And, come to think of it, she had never seen her and John look like they did at this moment.

"I've got to say Rose, that Tarzan and Jane look you've got going on at the moment really suits you," she said.

"Oh, thanks," Rose said with a smile.

Julia looked at Viktor and raised an eyebrow as she nodded down at their swimming costumes. He nodded back and reached under the water, bringing up his swimming shorts and throwing them on the bank.

Julia peeled her metallic blue cossie off her shoulders and pulled it over her legs under the water. With a lopsided smile, she tossed it over her shoulder to join Viktors shorts.

"When in Rome," she said.

Rose blushed at seeing them naked and proud in the pool.

"I'll have some of that then," John said as he took off his jacket and loin cloth. He jumped into the water with a splash and whooped as he came up for air.

"Come on miss frumpy pants," he called to her, reaching over for EJ. This would be the acid test to see if the memory dampening had really worked. Would she be comfortable being naked again? He hoped so, because he loved to look at her fit body.

She handed EJ to him, who tried to walk on water at first and then started splashing as he was lowered in. Julia and Viktor laughed at his antics.

Rose stood up and turned around, loosening the laces on the side of the tight dress. She slipped the dress off her shoulders and peeled it down her body. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Julia and Viktor were playing with EJ, and John was eyeing her with a look of appreciation as he gave her a wink.

She smiled at him and let the dress fall to the grass, leaving her in her soft chamois knickers. She lowered them down and stepped out of them before turning around and jumping into the pool.

She surfaced behind him and dunked him under the water. He came up laughing and spluttering.

"Frumpy pants? Did you actually call me frumpy pants?" They started splashing each other with water, collapsing into a hug in fits of laughter. They stopped laughing and just floated there, looking into each others eyes.

John tentatively and hesitantly leaned his head forwards and brushed her lips with his, pulling back to study her face. Was she okay with where this was going?

He didn't have to worry. One hand came up behind his head and pulled him into a snog, her fingers running through his wet, messy hair. Julia and Viktor looked up from playing with EJ to smile at the couple who were obviously in love.

Rose rested her chin on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. "Do you think Julia will baby-sit tonight?"

"Are you kidding me?" John said. "Look at her playing with him. She'd take him home with her given half the chance. He's such a lovable little guy."

"Just like his Dad," she said, giving him another kiss.

"Why do we need a baby-sitter? What have you got in mind?"

"Well, I was thinking of letting you take me down to the beach." She nibbled his ear.

"Lying in the surf…." She kissed his neck.

"And letting you shag the arse off me."

John's face was a picture of disbelief. "Mrs. Smith! I've never heard such language."

She was smiling with her tongue poking through her teeth. Her teasing smile, John called it.

"Now who's a frumpy pants?" she said.

John grinned at her. 'Yep. It had definitely worked', he thought. His Rose was back and raring to go.

**The End**


End file.
